


The hero and the spell-breaker

by letterando



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Drarry, Grimmauld Place, HP: EWE, Happy birthday J. K. Rowling, M/M, Master of Death, Master of Death Harry Potter, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sirius Black's Flying Motorbike, Veela, Veela Draco, Wandless Magic, very open ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 06:34:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4468973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letterando/pseuds/letterando
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry can't deal with his fame and cooks his days away in a decaying and ghastly Grimmauld Place number 12, but when Draco Malfoy walks in his house more than a decade after their last meeting, he realizes that it wouldn't be so bad to eat the meals he prepares together with the ex-Death Eater.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The hero and the spell-breaker

**Author's Note:**

> As a result of my frustration from other WIPs I wrote this based on the movie titled The Best Offer (2013).  
> I swear to Merlin I had a proper Best Offer AU all laid out neatly in 2k words. When I finished I had 30k worth of words (12 days of writing plus 5 days of editing) which coincided with roughly 10% of my original draft.  
> Q: Will there be a sequel?  
> A: No, I'm sorry.  
> WARNING: this work is un-betaed . I will re-read it many times but please understand there might be mistakes which I accidentally don't notice. Also this story features bottom!Draco and top!Harry. Finally, if you find the sex scene triggering for issues of consent, please tell me.  
> OCT 15 UPDATE: The Mark scene is inspired by: http://alekina.tumblr.com/post/110998951140/ Permission to link granted by the artist.

# I

Tea, scones, bread and marmalade. A quick but complete washing-up in front of the mirror. A meticulous inspection of the choice of clothes (again, in front of the mirror). Wand, check. Wards-loaded amulets, check. Locking spell, check. Down the first half of the stairs, on the landing, he adjusts the scarf tighter around his neck. Time, check. 8:13 in the morning. All right then.

He looks up to the sea of London’s rooftops greeting him. The night’s storm lingers in the crispy air and in the distant grumbling of the ceiling of grey clouds. He wonders when he’s started to feel so attached to his routine. It’s not like he has a pre-set timetable anymore.

He had one, though. A pre-determined timetable at work.

After three years in Azkaban, he served the rest of his sentence as public services at the Department of Magical Artifacts, a relatively new Department born from the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. Despite being born to find, study and deactivate dark artefacts interspersed in the wizarding and the muggle communities, it has quickly grown to become a liaison between the public and most of the dysfunctional and mysterious magical objects, gaining a quite peaceful reputation.

Draco, though, did not see a single speck of that lighter side. With the reputation of having being the one who fixed the vanishing cabinets, and of course with his past, he was immediately assigned to the dark artefacts section.

Of course, it being public service, he was treated little better than a house elf. Going to work early in the morning but never knowing when he was going to be allowed to go home, for example. There were days when the wizard or witch in charge of him finally sent him home at four in the morning, only to be awakened by a Ministry Howler because, obviously, they lost the memo that he was dismissed no longer than three hours earlier. No wonder Draco didn’t as much as waved them goodbye when his sentence was over.

The only issue is that his job was the only thing he knew well and could use to go by in this society. It was either that or emigrating.

His job? Maintaining the peace in the wizarding community of London’s metropolitan area, one dark artefact at a time.

He lights up a cigarette, careful not to let the cold wind get to the tiny flame. Taking in the first breath of the day, he steps around the morning crowd of businessmen and late students. It still feels surreal, that no more than twelve hours earlier he was employed by none other than Granger. More than a chance meeting, she ambushed him on his way going home, as he was spacing out in the evening crowd.

Well, it wasn’t a tough choice to make, though. When someone asks him to take on such an interesting job, it’s quite a given that he would accept. The house of an Ancient and Noble family, a mountain of equally ancient artefacts, the possibility of danger, the high level of difficulty of the task… Granger couldn’t have offered him a sweeter deal.

When he arrives in Grimmauld Place he has long finished his cigarette, but he casts a charm to dispel its smell since he can see Granger on the sidewalk, waiting for him. Her career in the Ministry is unheard of. Past all the prejudices against muggleborns, she managed to rise to the top of her chosen department in less than a decade.  A truly terrifying woman.

The wind picks up, so he raises his hand to stop it from messing up his perfect hair-style, while a few meters from him, Granger’s smile is diluted by the strain to keep her braid from slapping her square on the face.

“Good morning, Granger.” he’s quick to say. He had been trained that greetings should be expected only when society acknowledges you, but it’s different now; years of public service have planted their roots within him. He doesn’t regret it, though. As the evening before, Granger doesn’t sneer at him, nor does she glare, nor does she reply with a mumble, followed by an insult. Instead, she smiles at him, and Draco does his best to answer in kind.

“Good morning Malfoy. Again, thank you for coming on such a short notice.” says the red-haired witch as she opens the door for them.

The silver snake coiled around the door’s knocker twists, and the Fidelius charm swirls around him, scanning him, but Granger holds the handle while he steps in, so it’s just a moment of unpleasant sensation.

“Today is just an inspection so it’s no problem.”

They step in a narrow, dark, damp and kind of smelly entrance. The walls are almost entirely covered by portraits, most of which are hidden by rags. The biggest frame is gigantic, as big as the frame of his noble grandfather back in the Manor. Passing by it he senses 4, 5, no 6 enchantments, but none of them have an evil aura.  Gas lamps and a chandelier offer a kind of dirty, polluted light to show them the way. The gas lamps are of the 50s, local, but the chandelier looks French, 19th century. He swiftly makes a mental note about it.

While Granger leads him to the end of the hallway and the rest of the house, her step falters along the way, but it’s not because of a fallen object or an obstacle. To the side comes into view the ajar door of a closet, from where the smell of damp and dust comes off. Looks like he has to get used to such smells in this house. Merlin only knows what how Granger ended up in a place like this.

At the end of the entrance hallway, Granger introduces him to two stairs, the descending one is very shot and leads to the kitchen, she says, the ascending one, which walls are adorned by heads of long-gone house elves, as the old tradition wants, leads to the upper floors.

He feels such a strong malicious aura coming at him, that he has to fight the urge to scratch his forearm by taking mental notes about every object in sight. Once he’s done cataloguing everything with his gaze, he turns to Granger, who smiles faintly at him and leads him up the stairs. The landing offers three doors, only one of which is open to reveal what is, indeed, the drawing room of a Most Ancient and Noble House of wizarding society. The wall paper is peeling off and there are spots of mould like in the hallway an at the corners of the stairs, but the paper itself looks like original oil colours; the windows are imposing, though shadowed by thick, plain-looking curtains. A big, ornate fireplace with a few small flames stands in the middle of two of the most exquisite results of 19th century Italian glass work, though cloaked by cobwebs. The surrounding cabinets and drawers must be, he reflects, of equally high quality, but the artefacts crowning the central table (a massive product of the finest mahogany he’s ever laid eyes upon) shield them from view. Candelabras, silverware, vases, closed jewellery boxes surely filled with necklaces, rings and earrings, along with pins, ornamental magical antiques of little to no purpose and even a set of stem glasses.

He’s seen worse heaps of the most random kind of junks in his line of work, but he rarely finds such a strong malevolent intent from such a small number of items. There is so much that his forearm is burning up. He tries to dissimulate the pain as best as he can, mainly with a casual movement of the arm, meant to angle it so the fabric of his button-down doesn’t stick to his skin so much, but Granger, ever so observant, tilts her head with a worried expression.

“Are you alright, Malfoy?”

“Peachy.” He’s quick to answer. “So, is this the job? Quite the collection you’ve got here.” he continues, keeping his tone light. Because it is, so far. It’s a light job. Lighter than having a whole house worth of infested furniture to inspect and exorcize, that’s for sure. Even if Granger didn’t tell him the names of those who already tried to help her with her problem, he can easily guess them. Ticking off the old circle of Gryffindors, his ex-colleagues at the Ministry must visited this house for sure. Tiedoll, Sokaro, Yeegar… All of them can theoretically recognize and dispel the Dark Arts from such artefacts. Unless there is something more to it. And something more appears roughly a minute later, as Granger is excusing herself for the mess, when she hands him a piece of paper while still speaking and walking, as flawless as the London’s rain. Opening it, Draco finds that it’s a piece of plain muggle modern paper, surely written with a muggle pen, too. More than the peculiarity of the gesture in itself, it’s the content of the message which shocks him.

_“Malfoy, please don’t react to this. I’m asking you to take the job but secretly fail. Say that you will do it, but don’t sell anything off”_

Wait wait wait. What?

Well, yes, he deals with auctions too, he made heaps of artefacts circulate from his days back in the Ministry, and even though it’s on the back of his business card, it’s not his primary or preferred way to deal with such objects.

“What I don’t get, Granger…” he begins, but when he sees the young woman turning to him with wide, pleading eyes, he can’t help but sigh in exasperation and meet her halfway.

“My colleagues, who inspected this house before me, how long did they plan to close the job, just so I know how long will it take for mould to start to grow on me too…” he sneers at the end, just to be sure, and much to his surprise, Granger’s eyes light up and she even smiles brightly at him. Who would have thought that he would have ended up talking in code to Granger in one of the dampest and darkest drawing rooms in all of the wizarding community?

“Oh, a couple of days at most.” chirps Granger.

 _What_. He looks at the pile of evil intent on the table and turns to the witch while indicating it with his thumb.

“It that all of it then?” If it is, maybe a couple of days could be possible… without either sleeping nor eating, that is. And knowing that bunch of money-obsessed bastards at the Department...

“Of course not.” replies joyfully the witch. “As I was about to tell you, this is only the first batch, the rest is in the upper floors, and will be delivered to you on this table as you proceed with your work.”

What.The.Hell.

“Are you kidding me, Granger? That’s as dangerous as it gets! This house oozes curses and jinxes, most objects here are filled to the brim with the worst Dark Arts ever discovered, and you want to move them from the spots they occupied for Merlin-knows-how-long, _alone_? For Merlin’s sake, are you in your _right_ _mind_?!” As he looks back at her, he thinks shit, he thinks merd, he thinks fuck. Granger’s looking at him like he’s sprouted double dragon heads and he can’t really blame her. He just screamed at his employer. Again. Pointing out how ignorant and dumb they are. _Again_. ….. _Shit_.

“Granger, I…” he tries to recover but Granger’s quicker. After a swift movement of her wand, she approaches him, her rosy complexion starting to fade.

“Do you really… mean it?”

“Mean what?” he prods.

“That this house is dangerous.”

Sighing, he takes a look around to re-organize his thoughts.

“Not per se. But I’m not sure that most of the artefacts in here mean well either.”

“ _Mean_ _well_? You say it like they’re sentient.” she says with a frowning expression.

“Well, this is the house of a Most Ancient and Noble. Meaning, one, its objects are very old and in ancient times the Dark Arts weren’t synonymous of evil. Not necessarily. Two, the objects have absorbed the magic flowing in the family, not just their magical power, but their magical core as a group, their life force, so to speak. And three, and most important, objects that are used to be handled in ancient bloodlines, if handled by strangers, can turn pesky quite quickly. Even if they were imbued with neutral Dark Arts or neutral magic, and even if you’re ‘the brightest witch your age’ or whatever.”

At that, Granger’s blood circulates again in her skin as she blushes slightly and stammers a negative reproach. However it doesn’t last long and she conjures a glass of water and sits down on the nearest chair, raising a puff of dust.

“I wasn’t… it wasn’t me who moved them.” she says, at last.

“Good. You can tell whoever did this that they no longer have to do it for you. It’s included in my job, I’ll do it.”

Instead of an confirmation, Granger lets out a hollow laughter, as if she’s tired of even thinking about it. Now that she’s not trying to be overly cheerful, Draco notices the purple lines under her eyes and her exhausted posture.

“I doubt you’ll get past this landing, Malfoy. The owner of the house is not very tolerant with outsiders.”

“Did they put intruders-wards on the upper floors?”

“Mmh.” she replies helpfully.

“Whatever for? Are they raising illegal magical beasts up there? Are they trying to go for a world record with the world’s largest spot of mould?” To his small relief, Granger lets out another burst of laughter, but it sounds considerably less desperate this time.

“No, silly. He lives here and he doesn’t want anyone in his comfort zone.”

Bypassing how Granger addressed him…. Draco admits to himself that he didn’t see it coming.

“Are you trying to tell me that there’s a living person, a wizard from a Most Ancient and Noble family… who _lives_ here?” Instead of denying like he hopes, Granger raises his hand as if saying ‘i know right?’.

She must be kidding. She _must_ be. Because who, Merlin’s beard, who in their right minds would choose to live here? Unless… they are either complete lunatics or runaway criminals. And Granger is not the type to associate with either. She said it was a job for her, for her sake, but it’s clearly not.

“You’re not going to tell me who the owner is, are you?” Going back to her dejected mood, Granger only shakes her head.  A crumbling house under Fidelius and a recluse madman… What a job he’s gotten involved into.

But no, wait, it’s not like he accepted or anything, this is just an inspection. He’s meditating about it when a necklace on the table catches his attention. He sits down on the nearest chair, ignoring the dust, to inspect it further and makes it turn around slowly in the air with his wand.

This necklace… Draco has already seen it somewhere. He mentally scans the pages of the Art History books and archive files he’s read but it’s not there. It wasn’t on the job either. It’s an older memory, blurry with the passage of time. He was at the Manor, sneaking in his mother’s private chambers, on her drawing table, there was an album, he opened it and inside there were lists, complete with pictures, of objects of all kinds, blueprints of houses and apartments, and boring documents testifying his mother’s lands; her possessions… as a member of the Black Family.

Careful not to let it show in the tremor of his hand, Draco lets the necklace down. 1870s at most, silver, Scandinavian, belonging to Elladora Black, if he recalls correctly. Worth: several thousands galleons. To a pureblood, and to those of were or are ‘aficionados’ of the Black family so to speak, the price can be pulled up to the dozens of thousands.

Merlin’s balls. This must have been one of the smallest houses of the family, either that or a ruin of the internal struggle for the inheritance back to three generations prior. Therefore, the wizard living here must be none other than a lunatic fan of the Blacks.  Now he sees what is going on. He sees it none too clearly.

“The other spell-breakers, they told you to sell it all off in an auction, right?” Instead of answering, Granger nods tiredly, scratching her forehead as if the mere thought exhausts her.

 _“Isn’t that for the better, though?”_ reflects Draco. However, Granger starts speaking with unfocused gaze, as if she’s thinking out loud and forgotten about Draco.

“But an auction… an auction would be the worst. He would leave immediately afterwards. We’ll never see him again.” The ‘we’ does not include Draco, of course. Granger and Weasley have a reputation of speaking in the first plural pronoun, or so the rumours in the Ministry go.

Seeing the young woman so distressed about it, he can’t really think that this house is harbouring an axe-waving, blood-thirsty madman. Draco scratches his forehead while he weighs his options. If only he didn’t restricted himself to as few cigarettes as possible per day… There aren’t options here, to put it bluntly. There is the fact that he found an abandoned house of the family from his mother’s side, full of valuable and invaluable objects. The only current hiccup is the pureblood inhabiting the above-mentioned Fidelius-protected house, like a dragon resting on his hoard.

“No need to stress so much over it, Granger.” he murmurs without really thinking. “Auctioning is not my preferred option.” when he looks up, Granger is staring right at him, as if it’s the first time she’s seen him in a decade. Innerly sighing, Draco goes on.

“I don’t know what my ex-colleagues told you. ‘Slow’, ‘fussy’, ‘demanding’. I’m sure these are recurring words in my clients and colleague’s minds when they describe me. But my pace appears slow because I don’t like the easy way out. Exorcizing en-masse and selling it all off is a momentary patchwork. It pushes the deadline forward, and in a decade or a dozen years you’re back at the beginning, if not worse. Every wizard and witch under the sun know that their old artefacts are somewhere in Nocturn Alley, ready to be sold or even shipped off-country.”  Of course Granger already knows that, even if she, belonging to another Department, shouldn’t, but her gaze hardens and her expression becomes more serious as she mulls over the truth.

“My job is not a matter of a couple of days because I demand to inspect every artefact personally, to gauge the quantity and quality of the magic stored within, and decide if it’s recoverable or not. And if it is, which is most cases, I expel the vicious intent and keep as much as neutral magic as I can.” When he looks back at Granger, she’s sold. She looks like she’s about to hand him the unlocking spell for every Department in the Ministry.

“So… you won’t sell the house off?” she asks him with what menacingly looks like enthusiasm in her eyes.

“Not until I’ve excluded every other possible solution, no.” He watches Granger squealing in delight and almost knocking her glass on a Rococo hand-mirror of exquisite quality, she steps forward and with her hands almost shaking from excitement, she says that he’s hired on the spot. Of course he is. All the other greedy bastards who came before him only wanted to fool her to fatten up their wallets. Well… He is, theoretically, fooling her too. …..Whatever, technicalities. What matters is that Grimmauld Place number 12 is not going to fall into incompetent, ignorant, uncaring hands. Even though the current pair of hands doesn’t seem to fit the description either, by the state of the building.

A last look around, and Draco makes up his mind. He’s taking this job and he’s going to free Grimmauld Place of its crazy, shady owner.

 

 

 

# II

The morning after London is bathed in a feeble, yellow-ish light. Both the muggle and the wizarding London bustle with activity, unaware of Draco’s personal dilemma. On the one hand, the quest to inspect and neutralize a hoard of treasures, on the other hand, the sheer mass of dark aura he is going to face.

As Draco progressed with his preliminary inspection, the day before, the burning in his forearm never settled down, and when he got home, the Mark and the surrounding skin were beet red and tingling for hours. At this point he’s going to have to expect non-stop burning for Merlin-knows-how-many days still, since the consequence of binding spells is that he runs the risk not to feel a dangerous jinxed object before he touches it. Shaking his head, he clears his mind from such unnecessary concerns and slips into Grimmauld Place, number 12. As soon as he swings the door open, a Patronus greets him.

“Good morning, Malfoy.” chirps Granger’s voice from the otter. “I’m sorry I can’t be there today to show you around, I’ve got work piled up from yesterday.” which, Draco thinks, must be a routine phrase in the Weasley-Granger household. “But he’ll send you everything you have to inspect to the drawing room I showed you yesterday and I’ve been told to tell you not to try to go upstairs. You’re still a stranger for the house, even if you have access to the Fidelius now the wards will throw you out as soon as he says the word, so beware of that. One of the other doors of the first landing is a bathroom, which is at your disposal. Well, that’s it, have a nice day!” Merlin be damned, he forgot about the upper floors ban. Stepping over the vanishing Patronus, he thinks that it’s not that big of a problem, though. He’ll just have to lure this mysterious wizard out and face.

As Draco’s mind is wandering towards possible plans to achieve his goal, he finds everything exactly as it was the day before, but maybe because he’s alone now - honestly, he never expected Granger to help him out as she said - whether “helping out” was intended as “keeping an eye on you” or not - it seems to him that the state of Grimmauld Place is even worse as he made it at a first glance.  If he strays from the centre of the carpet in the hallway, he leaves footprints on the dust, and, among the frames which are not covered, he doesn’t see one which is inhabited. The stairs are creaky and in serious need of a strengthening chain of charms, at the very least. While the hand-rail is clean on the upward side, there are cobwebs on the downward side.  He can’t help but marvel at the richness of the colours of the wall papers, though. As he once again enjoys the artistic quality of the drawing room. Moreover, even if it seems, to him, that there is five times more dust than there was the day before, every surface looks even more valuable and precious now that he knows it belonged to the Black Family.

First, he enlarges the stools and the books he brought. _Maxwell’s Guide to 19th Century Magical Jewellery_ , annotated version. Merlin knows that this is the first time he has to bring this old one along. _Carved Runes: the Secret Catalogue; Wooden Works Volume_. _Chained Jinxes and Charms in Ancient Households_ with annotated plates by the Symons twins. These two will now repay him of the hell he had been through as he looked for them. And finally, the _Pamphlet of the 17th Illustrated Collection of the Most Ancient and Noble Families of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: The Black Family_. Which he had enough perspicacity to dig out of the archives before the Central Library closed down.  Well, that is going to be fun.

 

Or not.

Draco tries to live as comfortably as he can in-between jobs, so he tends to forget what it is like. Dust, dirt, grease and grime, smell of mould and old and decay, together with no refreshments and constant supervision. Well. At the end of work, when his parcel comes, he’s just as grateful to be an ex-Death Eater with a more or less steady and gratifying job as the next guy. Today is the first day so it’s perfectly normal for him to forget to prepare or buy lunch, even if his stomach makes itself known by the time afternoon settles in. But he’s usually supervised. Even though he feels like his every movement is observed, Granger spends the working hours at the Ministry and he’s above asking for tea to the person who lives here but hasn’t even showed his face. Fact stands that without any refreshments Draco has to make do with tap water and, having missed lunch, he’s starting to feel a bit dizzy.

He approaches the window and opens it ajar to let a trail of cold air in. He’s sweaty and his usually impeccable clothes are currently unfit for human’s sense of judgement. The first few hours (hours to days, depending on the surroundings) of every job are dedicated to cleaning. He doesn’t regret one second of this routine of his, though. They can call him however they want, but he refuses to work in a dirty and smelly environment. Plus he can’t stand to let his clothes, the top of the choice for every self-respecting working wizard, to get soiled every single minute.  Even though Grimmauld Place’s case is so arduous that even his mother would assign it to a team of expert house elves.

“Merlin’s beard.” he sighs in relief as he the cold wind brushes against his hot skin. The collar of his shirt prickles his sweat-covered skin but he doesn’t dare to undo the first button. Moreover, he hasn’t greeted the master of the house yet and Merlin knows Draco has been issued complains for such trivial things. Due to the heap of magic-emitting antiques on the table behind his back, his forearm has been burning all day as he expected, so he slowly peels the sleeve of his shirt off and lets the pale skin to rest against the window glass. The relief is so immediate and so great that a moan escapes his lips, but before he can feel embarrassed for his own lack of restrain, he hears the sound of porcelain behind him. And what is worse, his instinct overcomes his reason and he starts turning around with his wand already drawn. Fuck, he’s going to get fired on the spot and they would be in the right, they could charge him for attempted assault! _Fuck_.

However, once he’s fully turned, wand half back in his sleeve-pocket, the room is empty and there is only the faintest sound of steps covered by the deafening thudding of his own heartbeat. A couple of seconds, and the footsteps are gone. They must have gone upstairs already. With a sigh of relief, he adjusts his wand and his sleeve, thinking that he’s lucky that the owner of the house is such a recluse scaredy-cat. Although, as reason comes back to him and he rewinds the situation… Shit, hisses Draco in his mind, what if the master of the house misunderstands and thinks that he was doing something dirty? In his drawing room! On the job! That would crown the worst misunderstanding he’d come across on his job so far. He has to apologize, he _has_ to. His embarrassment won’t let him go without a proper explanation. At the door he faces upward, but it’s the same situation as the day before. The end of the stairs is hidden by a skilfully constructed charm so that the stairs appear to end in a mass to dark grey mist. He’s seen it before, when he was young and he was made to go to high society balls and galas in Noble Families’ villas, most rooms were protected like this. It’s a pain because it numbs all your senses and it alerts the caster at the same time.

Damn. Would an apology from the landing suffice? He’s got to try anyway.

“Afternoon.” He croaks out. “I’ve been employed yesterday by Mrs Weasley nee Granger to take care of any dangerous artefact in this house.” He hopes there’s not much embarrassment trailing in his voice. Merlin knows he’s already made a bad impression as it is.

“It seems that we haven’t been introduced. I’m Malfoy, Draco, Ministry-certified spell-breaker.” The proper pause for a reply passes by in silence. Oh well, not like he was expecting anything from someone who scurried away like that.

“I apologize…” for what? Sounding and looking like he was relieving himself in the middle of the day in another gentleman’s drawing room? For not keeping the Mark hidden? What if the owner didn’t even hear him but was bothered by his constant cleaning spells? That sounds less humiliating so he goes for it.

“....for disrupting your day with my spell-works.” He pauses to recollect his thoughts but the sweat  pooling on his neck and cheeks distracts him so he blurts out the first thing which can get him out of there.

“I’m finished for the day. Have a pleasant evening.” Which…. what. He’s not finished, he was planning to leave after he finished cleaning the drawing room completely, at the least! Frustration boils in Draco’s mind as he collects his stuff and makes sure to leave everything in order. Upon such inspection, though, he finds something which wasn’t there before. On the table, on the spot closest to the door, there’s a cup of tea.  The porcelain is of the finest work, Welsh, beginning of the 20th century, the spoon (obviously) doesn’t belong to the set but, as expected from Italian silverware of the same period, it’s certainly not an eyesore.  So the master of the house came by to bring him a cup of tea. Look at that, the crazed recluse has manners, apparently. Now that he caught a whiff of the delicate blend, Draco’s throat aches with thirst and in respect to the gesture,  he sips it to the last drop. Then, adjusting his robe on the landing, without even looking up to the dark barrier, he offers a silent bow of gratitude.

 

 

 

# III

Reasonably, the morning after a rainy night is, from his humble point of view, fucking freezing. In times like these, he thanks Merlin every step of the way to Grimmauld Place for the invention of self-heating charms. The day before he didn’t light up the fire in the fireplace because of the sheer amount of duest, but today it will be the first thing he does.

Grimmauld Place’s hallway is certainly not homely, with its lugubrious atmosphere; instead, the drawing room looks so different, it takes him several minutes to convince himself that this is the correct room.  The display of antiques is the same as the day before but every other object looks completely different. The wall paper, the furniture, the carpet, everything looks as exquisite as well-kept as if a house elf had taken care of it every day. The only thing which stands out as an eyesore are the windows and its curtains, which he failed to clean yesterday because of his rushed retreat.

Look at what some maintenance does, he marvels as he discards his robe and books on his stools. The last pleasant note is given by the fireplace, which already houses a crackling fire. He cleaned it thoroughly yesterday but didn’t dare to go to the basement to look for logs. There’s a heap of them now, beside the fireplace in a copper container, and it looks like the fire has just been lit. Not to mention that when he looks up to admire his work, he finds a cup of tea and a scone resting on the bulging, engraved marble frame of the fireplace. On workdays, when he sleeps like a log because of fatigue, he always starts the day with a cup of coffee, but he’s surely not going to deny himself a good blend and a great-looking scone. Which reminds him. Swiftly, he goes back to the landing and looks up, but the end of the stairs is still charmed. Would a greeting from there be enough? He wonders how much greeting a no-trespass spell would humiliate him until, embarrassed at how silly he must look from outside, he ends up fidgeting with the hem of his pullover. At a loss, he ends up with a rushed “Good morning.”, hoping that he’s not being heard nor seen by a soul.

Contrarily to his previous plans, he disregards the artefacts once again to finish cleaning up the curtains and windows. Once the whole room’s squeaky clean, though, he feels bad for the state of the stairs and the hallway so he moves onto them. He doesn’t dare disrupt the covered frames, but as he casts spell after spell, a couple of the free, blank frames in the entrance hallway are repopulated. The portraits look at him like Granger on the first day, as if he sprouted heads of dragons. He doesn’t initiate conversations. There are is less furniture here, leaving aside the hidden frames, and by the time he finishes this task too, the entrance and the stairs look, at least to him, like those which a high-society wizarding family would live in. By contrast, his clothes and hair are a mess and he’s forgot to eat the sandwich he brought for lunch. He mentally thanks Merlin that the fire in the drawing room has been kept, since it’s mid-afternoon already.

As he checks that his cufflinks are in place, a soft clinking sound behind him freezes him on the spot. Fighting the urge to draw his wand, Draco turns around, but nobody is there. When he approaches the exit of the room, he finds a plate and a sandwich which looks a thousand times better than the one he had in the fridge. It tastes _brilliant_. Biting into the egg and sausages, he has to physically restrain himself from moaning. The owner of Grimmauld Place must be a masochistic bastard to live in such an environment, but, Merlin’s beard, he sure can cook.  The excitement of handling antiques belonging to his mother’s family is second only to the curiosity building inside of him for  such a mysterious figure. Dozens of questions gravitate in his mind as he takes the first good look of the arrangement on the table. Now that he’s near the artefacts, his forearm tingles. He’s used to work in cramped attics, where he has to be aware of every moment least he smashes his elbow against a jinx-filled object. With this much space he could carry on his best spell-work since he’s been on the job.  What to do.

He goes to the landing and looks up, yet there is no change. Should he try to ask from here? Wait, Granger never spoke about a wizard. What if she talked about a house elf? Has he been speaking formally to a house elf for the past three days? What nonsense. There’s no way a house could degenerate like this if this was the case. It’s certainly a wizard.

“I have a request.” he starts with. Wait. Shouldn’t he thank the master of the house for the food first? Shit.

“It would be more beneficial to my work if I deal with one object at a time.” he continues, only to stumble on another obstacle. How to do that though.

“Should I move them to the landing and wait for him to move the next one down?” murmurs Draco absent-mindedly staring at the pattern of the marble stairs.

“Would that work? Is he always home? I can’t just leave them here, though, they’re in the way.” he keeps mumbling. As he thought, this is insane. There’s no way this one-way communication can work.

Resolved, he goes up the stairs into the no-trespass charm. The distress is immediate, he didn’t remember the numbing effect to be so powerful. His sense of smell, hearing and his sight are the first to go, but he steps onto what he thinks must be the upper floor. At this point, though, the charm is so strong he doesn’t even have a clear hold of his magic and as his heartbeat desperately accelerates, he can only find himself standing there, too many thoughts in his mind and too little strength in his body. In the blink of an eye, his whole body is jerked away and he opens his eyes to unknown surroundings. His first instinct, to draw his wand, can’t work because his body is still too heavy but it’s a matter of blinking away the spell and as light floods his vision, he finds himself in one of the biggest kitchens he’s ever seen.

Beside him, heat is being spread from a huge fireplace, though considerably less sophisticated than its counterpart above. To his left there’s a simple, cheap-looking white table, its accompanying chairs vary in forms, colours and materials, but the most impressive part is the kitchen per se. Draco’s mind offers ‘well-furnished’ at first, but it’s beyond that. It includes so many appliances that it has been expanded onto its initial intended space so its drawers and closets form a sort of ‘U’.  The table catches his attention again because of the huge pile of used appliances, bottles, trays, half-covered pots and mugs. From his position he can’t see but there must a cycling cleaning dishes charm because he hears a regular clink of porcelain. The only empty spots on the table are very narrow and in front of a couple of the available chairs. There is also a sofa which he’s sitting upon. His inspection is interrupted by the coming back of his sense of smell, at last, and his perception of two simultaneous things. The smell of pepper and the floating cup. Because there is a floating cup in front of him. With a side look he notices a small pot on the burners and a second later the smell of cocoa hits him. And who is he to refuse a cup of hot cocoa after such a “pleasant” experience? Thus, he takes it with a breathed thanks and sips it. The vague taste of pepper ignites his tasting buds and sends a shiver throughout his body. Not bad at all. Then, on the table appear a piece of parchment and a muggle pen. The contrast is eerily disturbing but he’s more curious about the content. When the pen stops he gets up to read it.

_If you want to see one object at a time, you will.  You can tell me when you are finished and I will put them back and replace them with another so you can leave them in the drawing room._

Instead of a reproach for his misbehaviour, the messy handwriting picks up exactly where he left off with his request. At the cost of looking like an Imperiused person, he answers to the air.

“Thank you. But what if I have to consult with you? As I thought, this isn’t going to work well if I can’t talk to you in person.” The spell-bound pen and paper move again and his reply appears.

_Consult with me upon what?_

“My job. What if I find a jinx but I can’t extract it because the house’s barrier impedes my magic? What if I can’t feel the evil intent in an artefact but it’s still there, just bound to react to the heir of the house, which is often the case. Malignity in antiques is unpredictable, I need to consult with you at a moment’s notice if you’re the one bound to the magic permeating the house now.” He’s about to finally ask if the wizard is a Black, maybe an illegitimate child, when words appear on the paper again.

_Can you really feel the evil in the objects here?_

“Yes.” he cuts short by taking another sip of the cocoa, but the wizard insists.

_How?_

“I just do.” he exhales, hoping that it would suffice. It doesn’t. The previous word gets even underlined, so he sits down the nearest chair and reorganizes his thoughts. One step at a time.

“I have an engraved set of runes which enables me to feel the malign burden of the Dark Arts.” Please don’t ask. Please don’t ask. Please don’t ask. Hopes Draco frantically as he scratches his forehead, fighting the urge to press the palms of his hands to his eyes to keep the world out. He looks when the pen’s movement ends.

_The arrangement will be as I wrote. You can work at your own pace. If you need anything, just ask. I’m here all day._

So the man _is_ a shut-in. It must be why the kitchen looks so lived-in. Seeing no point in carrying out a conversation with someone who’s not even here in person. When he goes back to the drawing room the table has been completely cleared but for a candelabra.

Come on. He says to himself. It’s time to get to work.

 

When the antiques don’t harbour jinxes it’s, obviously, very simple handling them. A set of cleaning and preserving charms, a quick notice from the landing to the upper floor, and there’s that. The problem, which is his work per se, comes when his forearm sends the alarm. Then it’s a constant chain of spells. First, screening and checking. Then probing and poking its magic. Then, if it doesn’t react for some reason; extracting the object’s runes, studying them, taking notes for future jobs and finally tracing opposing runes to dispel them. Then checking after a short while if the evil-bearing runes are indeed gone, ergo cleaning the item. If the jinx reacts, be faster than it, restraining the magic without damaging it, then from extracting the runes onwards.

It sounds like one hell of a job, but there is nothing he knows how to do better. Plus, he loves to add the extra phase which consists in trying to discover the history behind each object, who it belonged to, how it got there, how long has it been sitting in its house, what could have prompted it to absorb evil aura and so on and so forth.

Due to the mental strain his job requires, Draco often ends the day with a migraine. Whereas due to magical fatigue, he always ends up feeling drained and uncoordinated. It really bothers him when he thinks that there are so many people right outside the door who still associate his name to the Dark Lord, which is not untrue per se, but it bothers him seeing his past so close to his present when he’s doing all he can to keep it as far away as possible. Also, due to his obsessive level of concentration and dedication to the job, he almost always forgets to eat and drink, resulting in slight dizziness. Which brings him to his legs giving out a few steps from the house’s door, which leads to him waking up in a very dark room.

At first, Draco deduces that he must have collapsed at home like the past few days but his wand is not under his pillow and he personally charmed it so that he doesn’t crush it in his sleep. Not sure if he can physically straighten up in one movement to face whatever situation he’s in, he opts for opening his eyes first. There’s a reddish light and a crackling sound, a fire, other elements he can’t recognize it due to the darkness. Groaning under his breath, he pushes with his elbow and turns his torso, when-

“Malfoy!” A scared, familiar voice is heard and a familiar bushy braid appears from the lit-up landing. After the lights are lit he’s momentarily blinded until he can make out Granger, looking at him as if unsure if she should support his feat of sitting up or not. When Draco succeeds, he immediately regains sense of his surrounds, he’s on a sofa in the drawing room of Grimmauld Place, number 12, London. And he fainted on the job. _Again_. Splendid. As Granger narrates how he’s been found and levitated here, he steals a look from the window. Pitch-black. Although in winter it doesn’t mean anything, it could have been hours or mere minutes. Fact is, he has imposed on his client and he’s feeling like shit because of it.

“I’m fine.” he says, doing the first button, which had come undone. “I apologize for the inconvenience.” he breathes out as he tries to walk past the witch.

“You-wh-” stammers Granger, but she gets back quickly. “Malfoy! Will you wait for a second? I’m telling you that you need to eat something before going home, I’m not even sure you can Apparate safely in your condition!”

“I can.” Merlin knows he’s Apparated in worse conditions.

“And when I tried to give you a mild Wideye and a Strengthening, a runic medical spell reacted to it and sealed your mouth-” Oh Merlin. She found out about that. He huffs in exasperation as he descends the stairs as quickly as he can on his still wobbly legs.

“Do you know that I know that it’s a spell only professional medical personnel can put?” comes the rising voice of the witch behind him. He tries to walk faster in the hallway, simultaneously trying his best not to look like he’s plainly running away. “Do you know that they conjure that only to those who _abused_ -” Sweet mother of _Merlin_. He closes the door behind him and  descends in the streets of London. How on earth does that woman know about something like that anyway? Isn’t there a limit to curiosity?? He grips his wand in his sleeve, pictures his bed, and twirls. Worst case comes, there’s only one person left in the world who’ll cry at his funeral.

 

 

 

# IV

A mild headache, the morning after, warns him that the day is not starting in his favourite way.

His morning’s full with work, what with the artefacts hiding some really nasty jinxes, causing his headache to quickly develop into a migraine. At a certain point, when he exits the bathroom after wetting his forehead with cold water, a Patronus appears on the landing. It’s a tall, slender stag, staring at him silently. Contrarily to his expectation, it doesn’t relay any message, but it walks down the stairs and turns around to stare at him some more.  Deciding it’s best to leave it alone, he heads for the drawing room, but the stag appears in front of him, blocking the passage. If he didn’t have a migraine by now he would have tried to reason with its caster through it, but being as it is, he turns on his heels and heads downstairs. From there, the stag appears again in the kitchen’s threshold, only to vanish in a couple of seconds.

Feeling bad for the miserable display of the day before, Draco goes in quietly. After the long, seemingly abandoned dining room, the kitchen is bustling with cleaning spells again, although the air is permeated only by fragrant, mouth-watering smells, coming from the spending meal arranged on the white table. A main dish at the centre offers an extremely tasty-looking slice of meat pie, while on the side there is a bowl of steaming soup, warm bread and both water and a muggle sparkling beverage he saw at the supermarket. If the purpose wasn’t clear enough, a small piece of parchment beside the plate states “Please eat”. Unsure of whether or not he’s supposed to give his thanks out loud, he stares at the food until his stomach decides to take the matter in its own hands, therefore he sits down to cover his embarrassment and after a murmured “Thank you for the food”, he digs in.

He is momentarily shocked by the taste’s richness, and he finds himself staring at the rest of meat pie in the switched-off oven and the self-stirring pot of soup on the burner. It’s no wonder the wizard knows such good cooking spells, reflects Draco. If he doesn’t go out all day, it’s only natural. Still, it should be illegal to cook something so tasty. He doesn’t remember the last time he ate such a tasty lunch. The last time… must go back to before the return of the Dark Lord, when his parents and would take him out in sparkling, clean, colourful restaurants for dinner. Merlin knows he can’t afford it ever since. He has no rush in pillorying himself by going out in public in the wizarding community without the Polyjuice, which he takes as rarely as possible because ew. Just ew. The food is simple, but so good that it might even be better than sex. Even if, on that front, he has to compare with his years at Hogwarts, since recently his sexual life consists on quickes with random guys in queer London.

When the post-meal sleepiness hits him, he knows the perfect remedy, so instead of going back upstairs, he pickss a cigarette and walks lazily towards the entrance, as if his energy had been suddenly drained by that fantastic lunch. A sudden thought occurs to Draco by the time his fingers brush the handle, though. He forgot to give notice of his movement. He’s still working, and, apart from not smoking on the job usually, the master of the house could think that he is leaving without even a parting word. That’s why with a hazy, sleepy mind, he turns around saying

“I’ll be outside a minute.” then he promptly mentally slaps himself because there’s no way the wizard heard him if he lives on the upper floors. And in fact, silence follows. As he turns around to go to the first landing and repeat,

“Oh, he heard you alright.” an old, masculine voice appears out of nowhere. In reality, Draco saw it in the corner of his vision while he was turning around, a person in a nearby frame, but it still leaves him dumbfounded for a while. It’s a relatively new portrait, it mustn’t be older than a couple of decade. A shepherd with a Welsh accent rests against a fence while a few sheep wander around. The background’s blurry and hilly. It must be the cheap present of a friend for the new master of the house, probably bought during a discount occasion.

“Hullo youn’ man.” the jovial greeting of the portrait brings Draco back to reality.

“Sir.” he murmurs, tipping his head forward. The simple gesture visibly pleases the old man, who smiles and nods.

“As I was sayin’, he heard you fine.”

“All the way to the second floor..” he murmurs, looking back at the end of the dark (but not dirty) hallway.

“He’s got his ways.” whispers the portrait half-joking, half-menacingly. Satisfied with it, after a small nod, Draco moves to the exit when the portrait speaks again.

“Wha’s that, youn’ man.” asks the man glaring at his cigarette. “Youn’ shou’d-”

“Have to.” he interrupts to cut the lecture short. “Lunch was just too good.” and if he smirks conspiratorially at a cheap, countryside portrait, no one has to know.

After his secret pleasure, he feels ready to keep on working until late, headache be damned. At the  entrance, though, an uncalculated hindrance shows up in the person of Ronald Weasley. The wizard, who’s shouting something intelligible at someone in the kitchen, zeroes in on Draco as soon as the door closes.

“You!” he shouts. “You!” he shouts louder, his angry blush taking over his face. Fuckshit. Draco thinks as Weasley narrates his story. Apparently, the evening and night before Weasley carried out a special mission as Auror squad leader, a very dangerous affair. His wife, of course, was worried sick, so she came here to seek company, instead she found even more trouble in Draco, passed out from overwork and self-neglect. What’s more, her then already multiplied worry multiplied again, when Draco walked out of Grimmauld Place without a second thought.

“Do you have any idea how fucking worried she was? Over you, blasted Merlin!” shouts Weasley with indignant tone as Draco finally manages to bypass him in the hallway. And he does so silently, for he has no words for red-haired wizard. He feels bad about Granger, he didn’t mean to aggravate her stressful state, but Draco’s sure every word he will say to Weasley will fall on deaf ears. The Auror just wants to vent out his frustration at someone, like many wizards and witches have done in the streets when they recognized him an ex-Death Eater. With his migraines coming back in full stride, he rocks himself back and worth slightly in front of the window of the drawing room to recollect his thoughts when he sees, in his peripheral vision, the artefacts he was working on before lunch and an idea strikes him.  He turns around and faces the red-headed wizard.

“Do you know, Weasley, that the fact that jinxed antiques attack random bystanders is a false truth?” He states as resolutely as he can, and before Weasley can react, he goes on.

“It’s the result of false testimony because, in reality, the Dark Arts react to people’s malignity with the same currency. They attack who is harbouring evil intent. I wonder who, between us, will this artefacts react to?” He says, staring intently at Weasley, trying to make the wizard understand to fucking _drop_ _it_. Weasley unfortunately misunderstands.

“Are you threatening me now, Malfoy?” Ah. Well, of course. As expected of an Auror, turning everything into a threat. Ignoring the rest of Weasley’s aggressive monologue, Draco picks up Maxwell’s guide and skips to the end, where the principles of his job are stated. Found the lines he needs, he turns back to the raging man.

“It’s a certified fact.” he says, fighting the urge to add “you do remember how to read, don’t you?” Again, it doesn’t bear the expected result and Weasley draws his wand, shouting “Are you fucking with me Malfoy?!” In retrospect, Draco should have known better than trying to reason with the man. Just as he closes the book and lets his wand slide out of his sleeve-holder, there is an explosion in the fireplace, making them both jump in shock. Not bothering with the weasel anymore, he checks with his magic if it was the work of the artefacts and only when no sign comes up, he turns back to find that Weasley has finally calmed down. He looks dejected and beaten up all of a sudden, as if he’d let a criminal escape from under his nails. The colour is drained from his cheeks as he puts away his wand with a protesting frown. With a huff, and stomping his feet a bit more than it’s strictly mature, the Auror pulls his robes tighter around himself and walks out of the room. Draco’s mind brushes the possibility of having the last word by telling Weasley to say hello to Granger for him, or, sarcastically, to say ‘have a nice day’, but since he just thought about how immature the other man has been, he deems it better to be a bit mature himself. When he hears the door closing, nothing refrains him from pulling the memory out of his head and into a vial transfigured from one of his bookmarks.

 

 

Seven ‘o clock echoes in the house. He imagines the clock as one of those tall, wooden wall clocks, maybe even with a pendulum. He wonders if it’s the same German masterpiece which is listed in the Black exposition pamphlet. If it doesn’t appear on the table maybe he can ask the master of the house if he can see it. Thinking back to his tea breaks and lunch, the recluse doesn’t sound like a completely rotten character so far. Merlin knows Draco has had to deal with way worse, even with what little knowledge he is gathering about his current client.

The current antique he’s working on is an 1880s wooden and silver jewellery box which came into the Black household thanks to Violetta Bulstrode. It has accumulated too many layers of core magic in the last century, so he is working on detaching them through a thread of runic exorcisms.  The last toll of the clock resounds as a voice calls him from the door of the drawing room. His concentration falters and, _shit_ , he traces the wrong runes, which latch onto a neutral spell, dissembling it.  He discovers what the charm was when its consequences become visible and the box unlocks itself. A locking spell then. What was it keeping in?  Granger’s voice calls him but Draco remains focused on whatever is coming out, making the evil intent of the Dark Art lash out in reaction to the brutal waking up. The air is slashed as the ripping spell explodes, bouncing on the barrier he sets at the beginning of every inspection for this very purpose.  However then, his forearm, already burning like fire, starts to pulse painfully. He recognizes the sign but it’s too late and the Boggart has already escaped from its measly confinement. A hint of a dark shape and it has already become the lifeless body of a red-haired child. Fuck. He’ll never get used to Boggarts. As Draco sidesteps to cover for Granger, he feels the overwhelming pressure of another source of magic beside him, but before he can process the information, the Boggart’s shape blurs and in turns into the Dark Lord. Or...well… half of it is ‘his’ usual Dark Lord and the other half… is something else. But he doesn’t have the luxury to dwell upon this either. Straight wand, tight grip, and the Latin words flow in his mind. Runes so sophisticated twirl in the air that the whole room seems to be collapsing and expanding simultaneously, however, it’s a mere moment and the Mark burns as its absorbs the creature’s malignant intent. As usual, Draco is so dizzy he can barely stand straight afterwards. Someone is telling him something but all he knows is that he needs to puke and lie down as soon as possible. His whole arm feels like it’s being swallowed by Fiendfyre and he’s already terrified of the nightmares which are bound to come.

The last thing he sees before trying to Disapparate is the jewellery box on the table, held still by his barrier, then the world twirls, he’s tugged by something soft yet encompassing, and yet he pushes through it with his magic until suddenly, with a yank, he’s free. Draco opens his eyes and he’s in his apartment, in the bedroom. He feels resentment and rage towards himself because that sensation must have been Grimmauld Place’s  protective wards, which in his hastiness he must have forgotten. His vision blurs as wonders if he’s going to choke with his own vomit, and when his knees give out he instinctively presses his palms onto them not to fall forwards. Next, gravity pulls him backward but it should be alright now, he should be near the wall. The wall in question is softer than he remembered though, and it tugs him away, on the side, but Draco doesn’t want to fall to the side, so he struggles, he wants to sit down and fall from there, it’ll hurt less, he knows, but the tugging is stronger than him and all of a sudden the floor disappears and the world spins too quickly.

The last things he sees is a dark, dark room with just a hint of light. A roof-tall library. A mop of black hair. A flash of green eyes. A moving mouth. He wants to know what the stranger is saying but he recalls too late that sounds can’t reach him at this point.

 

#    
V

The first thing he knows while he wakes up is that he’s still under the wave of Fiendfyre and that he needs magical water to wash off the crusts of the burns that are covering him. The second thing he realizes while he wakes up is that that was a nightmare and he is waking up from it, so he’s safe. The third thing he knows is that he is in an unfamiliar environment. This last notion, though, plays a soft tune at the back of his mind, since he can’t feel an ounce of energy in his muscles and that scares him more. In fact, when a shadow emerges from somewhere beside him in the room, the only reaction Draco can manage is his plummeting heartbeat. The shadow looms over him in the dim-lit space, and out of the blue his body feels light again. He can move! In that moment, the door swings open, letting a bigger source of light in, a familiar bushy-haired silhouette appears, consequently, the shadow next to him disappears before he can make out its identity. At the door, Granger breathes heavily a couple times before she draws her wand to light up what he supposes to be a fire, but is, instead, an assemble of candles and lanterns which bathe the dark in a warm light but don’t hurt his eyes. Standing in this tentative darkness, Granger starts to hiss in rage.

“Draco….Malfoy!” At his whole name spoken in a feminine, authoritative voice, he sits up by instinct. Mother used to tell him to pay attention when called because his ancestors were watching him. He’s always thought relatives were very nosy things for poking their noses into young heirs’ manners.

“You…. You…! Ugh!” continues Granger helpfully, seemingly on the verge of hysteria. If Weasley knew, Draco is sure he would be issued a formal challenge right now. He doesn’t need to gulp down saliva to know that he needs water, his throat hurts enough, so he hoarsely asks for some. After having mumbled the fastest ‘thank you’ he’s mastered, Granger mellows out considerably.

“You were unconscious for a whole day.” She reports with her arms crossed and a scolding tone. Draco already supposed that, though, it’s not the first time.

“You practiced runic Dark Arts, you tried to Disapparate from within one of the most heavily warded houses in Great Britain, and you have a personal folder at St. Mungo for self-medication abuse!” Trust Granger to poke her nose into other people’s medical tabs.

“So?” he asks, scratching the sleep off of his eyes. When he doesn’t receive an answer, he looks up. The witch looks like the epitome of disbelief, her mouth shaped exactly like a small ‘o’ and her eyebrows almost knit together at the top of her nose.

“So what?” he re-elaborates in the hope that Granger’s brains will reconnect anytime soon.

“So when you are in front of such a situation the first thing you do is not going home alone! The first thing you do is looking for help!”

Are all Gryffindors used to reason like this? he wonders. Or it because Granger passed through her deal of horrors at Hogwarts? Nonetheless he finds it quite interesting. Interesting, but not really his case.

“There’s no need. I’m fine.” He says tiredly as he scratches his hair absent-mindedly. Granger murmurs something that sounds suspiciously like “Stubborn rocks, both of you.”, but when he looks up she’s just glaring at him, her hands tightly coiled at her sides, the vocabulary picture of a scolding.

“Look Granger. I’m fine. Believe it or not. I apologize for the inconvenience I’ve caused. Now are the wards still in place? I’d like to Apparate home.” He murmurs as he groggily stands up. Ouch, his back. Draco’s fingers curl naturally at the hem of his sleeve-holder, but his wand is not there. That’s when he takes a first look at his clothes. Which are not his clothes. He’s wearing  mismatched cotton pajamas instead. What in Merlin’s name… As he turns to face Granger, she is sporting a triumphant expression.

“No you don’t.” she says. “We’ve talked and we decided to let you stay here until you finish your job at Grimmauld Place.” What. Is everyone batshit crazy in this house?

“I don’t need to know the law to know that that it’s _illegal,_ Granger.”

“Then I’ll report your runic seal. Have you checked  if _that_ is legal, Malfoy?” she chirps, pointedly looking at his forearm. Falling in her trap, he instinctively cover it with his hand, feeling something  softer under the fabric. They must have done something idiotic like bandaging it or something. He cringes at the thought that someone saw it, for it’s definitely not a thing he would have shown to anyone. Fuck.

“Malfoy.” This time the witch pronounces his name with compassion and, Merlin forbid, pity, so he turns his back to her in the futile attempt not to hear what she has to say.

“Can’t you take this as, I don’t know, some sort of vacation? If not help? A room’s been prepared for you, I’ve cleaned it myself, and I made sure there aren’t objects old enough to absorb magic. Oh, and there’s not a trace of red.” A room she says? Here in Grimmauld Place? For him?

“I heard you had a couple meals here already. Food’s great isn’t it?” she continues. “So eat up! You’ll get plenty of sleep and food and by the end of your work you’ll probably be healthier than you were when I asked you for this job. Well, _I_ hope so at least.” And the worst thing is that she sounds honest. Merlin’s beard, when did Granger become able to turn people into her minions so easily?

Draco sits back on the bed slowly, massaging his temple, trying to get the gears in his head in motion. But he can’t, that’s part of the issue. He’s tired even after Merlin-knows how many of hours of sleep. He’s exhausted, starving, he needs a long, warm shower and yes, he’s grumpy. He wants to kick and scream and make a fuss and complain but Merlin strikes him if he’s going to tarnish his dignity more than life already has.

“What’s it in for you?” he mumbles, and Granger asks him to repeat because allegedly, mumbling with his face completely cradled in his hands may be not the best in terms of communication.

“Helping you?” provides the witch after a few moments. When he looks at her she’s looking back at him with her arms and hands open as if to say ‘what can I do about it?’.

“I don’t know, call it complex hero or whatever. Look, Malfoy, can’t you stay put for a while and let us help you, and in return you don’t give me more white hair?” she asks exasperatedly, but she quickly recovers. “Err I mean ‘white hair’. Without the ‘more’. I don’t have white hair, I’m 34 for god’s sake!” At that point he can’t keep it in anymore, and the laughter erupts tiredly. It’s a mixture of exhaustion, exasperation and wonder. When he looks back at Granger she is, understandably, staring at him like he’s sprouted a triple dragon head.

“Sure you do.” He says exhaling. Ignoring Granger’s indignant rebutting, he sighs. And by sighing, he gives up. As Granger said. Whatever.

After she calms down Granger sighs too.

“He told me to tell you that he changed your clothes and saw to your arm. I swear I didn’t do anything about it, all right? He didn’t let me. And also he washed your clothes, they’re in your room already, but you’ll find some in the drawers and they’re in fairly good condition. Your wand is there too. Your books are still in the drawing room. Oh and there’s a light dinner downstairs if you want. But you should pass by the kitchen anyway, ‘cause he’s probably there now and he’s going to try to put it off but you two should see each other in person as soon as possible in my opinion.” He doesn’t ask who she is talking about because it could only be the master if Grimmauld Place, his current client. When he reflects on what display he must have shown him, he feels like puking again in self-disgust.

After having wished Granger good night, and after having stared for a while at the ashes of the Floo network behind her, he heads downstairs as if in a daze. He just doesn’t have the strength to look for his room, get dressed adequately, and look for the master of the house. Not now. He’s already seen worse anyway. Draco is in such a daze that he only stops when the entrance hallway extends in front of him. In the back of his mind he notices that he failed to orient himself and that he doesn’t even know how many landings he has passed. Looking lazily upwards from the third step he can see that all the doors of the first landing are closed, so that must be why he passed it without noticing, they’re never closed when he’s here. Finally, he decides to do as Granger suggested and drags himself into the kitchen, where the most mouth-watering smell wafts in air. The first half of the room, the long dining room, lives in the dark, while the second half, the kitchen, is bathed in light. There, his eyes are instantly drawn to the man standing in front of the burners, giving his back to the entranceway, even if, in the corner of his vision, he sees a steaming soup on the table which makes his stomach resurrect with a roar.

“Please sit.” Says the man in a calm tone, and Draco is so starved he does just that. Hot soup, breadsticks, warm, olive bread and a covered bowl with boiled meat, plus beverages. After the nightmares he’s been through, Draco muses, it’s only fair to be in a dream now. The hot soup trailing within his body, the appetizing smells, the rhythmic clang of a spoon in the pot, the peaceful quiet. Everything in his surroundings seems to lull him into a sense of calm and peacefulness.  He wonders if this is indeed it, peace, or rather loneliness, for the man whose back he is staring at. Of average height but very thin, the man is clad in white socks, dark brown cotton pants and a faded, oversized plaid jacket. His hair is black and all over the place and the only complexion which is visible, the nape, is pale. Even with only the view of his back Draco thinks that this man might be his type. Merlin knows that he seems to favour a specific type when he goes out to pull. And since this is his client he’s thinking about, isn’t that all shades of creepy?

Draco’s worrying if he is that much sexually frustrated when the man, as if called, turns around slowly, his face appearing from over his shoulder first and green eyes strike Draco where he’s sitting. He feels like he knows those eyes but it’s hazy, and burning and painful.

Once he’s fully turned, the man lets his elbows rest on the kitchen counter lazily, but stays silent, so Draco takes his time to inspect him, since he supposes he is receiving the same treatment. The man’s chest is as thin as Draco supposed from his back, his collarbones protrude gently from the shirt’s neckline, his chin is not pronounced but since it’s hidden by black stubble it’s the focus of the face before following the lines of the chiselled jaws. Emerald eyes shine behind thin-rimmed spectacles and are outlined by purple circles underneath, which, in tandem with slight wrinkles by the corners, give off vibes of a peaceful yet at the same time haunted life.

“Hello Malfoy.” Says the man with a hint of smile. Again, his voice comes out effortlessly, like water pouring from the top of a waterfall.

“Hello.” He answers in kind, not knowing the person’s identity. He receives a smile in response which slightly deepens the wrinkles at the corners of the man’s eyes, then the black-haired man steps forward.

“Are you sure you don’t recognize me, Malfoy?” he asks. Of course Draco has a name on the tip of his tongue but as he looks more attentively... Nope. No scar. The spectacles are different but he wouldn’t expect a 18-year-old boy, and the Saviour to boost, to keep the same shabby frame for so long. Plus the Saviour had grown tired of his legions of fans and moved abroad. Millions cried, farewell parades were held, it was a bad few months. Then, Draco remembers that there are still people like this man around, impersonators. Aw shit. A crazy Saviour impersonator is the owner of a Black household. Fuck his life.

“We got our fair share of you here in London, why don’t you try the countryside?” asks Draco, trying to keep the exhaustion out of his eyes while simultaneously itching for a cigarette, or maybe alcohol.

“I’m not an impersonator, if that’s what you are referring to.” States the man calmly as he takes a firewhiskey bottle out of a closet and fills his glass. Draco drinks wholeheartedly as the man sits down in front of him.

“I am Harry.” He states “The scar faded after the Battle of Hogwarts, even if Ron and Mione can still see it, apparently. But I am Harry. We told everyone that I was going to move abroad while in reality I just shut myself in here. You’re the first one I’m telling after the Weasleys. The first one to know in 10 years. I hope you’ll agree to bind your words magically as to not divulge this information.” Draco stares at the man who just uttered the words, speechless, motionless, momentarily incapable of thought. The man, for it can’t be him, it _can’t_ , smiles warmly at him, again.

“You must want proof, it’s only logical. Then, to begin with, I’m sorry that the Sectumsempra scarred. I’ve never meant for that, never. I didn’t even know what the spell did, and-“  There’s a loud bang and the man, Potter, Merlin fucking _Potter_ , stops talking to stare at him, half-pleadingly and half-challengingly. Draco doesn’t know why, though. Why? Why is he looking at Potter from above now? He’s standing up. He must have sprung up without noticing. What happened. Draco thinks, taking a look at his surroundings. There’s a chair on the floor, it must be his, yes, his chair is not where it should be, it was him after all.

It was him.

It’s him.

He looks back at the black-haired wizard, who’s staring at him with his piercing green eyes and suddenly the urge to crash them washes over him. Take Potter’s head in his palm and press, press, press, slap him, hold him so tight he won’t be able to fight back, kiss him so hard he’ll quickly run out of breath. Would Potter reciprocate? Would Potter hold him just as strongly, would he tear him apart, take off these shabby clothes, touch the scar he spoke of, touch-

The scar. The Mark. Like the tide, his hatred is washed off by self-hatred, and self-hatred is burnt by rage. Potter saw it already didn’t he. The body Draco swore to himself he would never show him, if fate let them see each other again before their intended ends. His thoughts jumbled in a mass of emotions, Draco slams the glass on the table and, instinctively clutching his forearm, he walks out of there, and he would have, if, at the same time a voice didn’t call out his name, his first name, and the door didn’t slam shut so suddenly it makes him jump. Behind him, bathed in the white light, Potter looks at him apologetically.

“Sorry about that, Grimmauld Place seems to respond very well to me lately. Sometimes even _too_ well.”  More than the dismissing the disturbing fact that Potter trapped them both here…. Did Potter just called his name or did he dream it?

“Just wanted to say sorry about shoving this at you at this hour, but Mione said it would be better to come out clean from the start. And your room is on the third floor by the way, it’s the only open one. Good night.. Malfoy.” However now, even if the kitchen’s door is opening for him, he wants to stomp his foot and demand why he was “Draco” before but they’re back to “Malfoy” now, but since that would mean opening a whole new can of bogtrolls and he’s quite shocked as he is, he tries his best not click his tongue in annoyance and ends this reunion.

 

 

 

 

 

# VI

The morning after, it’s not easy for Draco to get dressed. Not because his clothes present any difficulties, they are, on the contrary, humble and simple from every point of view. Yet the gap between his wardrobe at home and this assemble is astonishing. Those troglodytes at the Ministry dare to go to work in other people’s households with shabby, old, discount clothes. A Malfoy’s wardrobe must be suited to be person, in one word, impeccable.

And not only he can’t find a waist-coat – how in Merlin’s brains does Potter go all day long without a waist-coat? – but all the shirts and button-downs in the closet aren’t suited to be wore underneath anything even remotely resembling one. It’s like Draco bought a one-way ticket to the festival of plaid and of rough, cheap wool and he can’t even remember where and when the hell did he buy it in the first place.  
Trying not to think about the clothes, Draco worries about his forearm next. With his wand he could administrate himself some anti-swelling and cooling spells for the Mark, however everything feels fine underneath the bandages so he doesn’t dare upset it more than he already has. In fact, he has every intention of taking the morning off and he’s still pondering about whether or not skipping the afternoon, too. As soon as he closes his room, another door on his floor opens, revealing a bathroom of hygienic decent conditions. Then, pushed by curiosity, he trudges upstairs until the fifth floor, but all doors apart from his are locked. On these floors, too, the wall paper is chipped in many places and mould grows like it’s trying to get revenge for every other clean, mould-free house in the UK. Not to mention how dust is raised at every step he takes. Mulling and worrying about how he’s going to face the not-exactly-abroad Saviour of the wizarding community downstairs, his pounding heartbeat accompanies him to the kitchen. The greyish light of early morning  and the fire in the fireplace aid in soothing his nerves, thus he manages to sit down at the white table in front of a majestic-looking breakfast with a short yet polite “Good morning.” At the other end of the small table, the black-haired wizard looks up from what looks like a women weekly magazine, responds in kind, and resumes his breakfast. The tasty breakfast lull Draco’s mind and body into a sense of false peace; that’s when Potter, the traitor, attacks him.

“Before anything else, I need you to take a pledge of secrecy.” He states, and with his gaze as passive as if he was looking at the sky to check the weather, Potter extends his hand forward. After staring at it for a while – it’s a very pale, very thin hand with a wet cloth around it and with a ring, made of fabric too, around his thumb – Draco’s gaze is attracted to the man himself, who shows that slim, frail-looking smile again and explains.

“For my identity and location. It’s not that I doubt you; I made everyone promise, you can ask Mione and Ron, every Weasley did, even Charlie and his partner, who live in Romania.”

The sentence “and if I don’t?” spirals in Draco’s mind uncontrollably, yet it doesn’t pass his brain-to-mouth filter since Potter’s gaze seems to have paralyzed him on the spot; which can’t be true because Potter is not holding his wand, and yet Draco is pervaded by the forethought that he shouldn’t antagonize Potter. If someone asks him, Draco will say that he is “mature enough not to rise to the bait”. Sighing in defeat, Draco draws his wand and raises it in front of Potter’s hand, wondering if he has to recite something, or if Potter will, or if Potter has to touch his wand somehow. However, Potter furrows his brows looking at the wand for a moment, as if he doesn’t know what it is, but it’s just a few seconds and his expression relaxes back.

“We can do this wandlessly.” claims Potter serenely, and Draco’s laughter comes spontaneously.

“Yeah, right.” he says, trying to keep his smile in check. However, Potter’s serene expression doesn’t falter an inch.

“You’ll get to tell me that I was wrong and you were right, then.”

“I-!” Draco starts to exclaim, but upon hearing his own indignant tone of voice, he stops by himself. He won’t rise to the bait. He will not. Frustrated that Potter thinks that he is still that childish, Draco withdraws his wand and tentatively extends his hand. Even though it sounds stupid in his mind, the contact with Potter’s hand is so sudden that it makes him uncomfortable. Potter’s skin is dry and warm, in contrast to the cool wetness of the cloth, and even thinner than it looks. Draco suspects that it must smell of all food that he handles and that maybe, if he leans forwards a bit he could be able to catch its scents. Indeed, after knowing that the person who left him to rot in Azkaban for 4 years and who was supposed to be traveling the world in a self-appointed exile until the day before is right in front of him, it must be weird to hold hands with, all of a sudden. Nonetheless, Draco knows that he must endure it for a short while. As he braces himself by inhaling and exhaling deeply in the most discreet way possible, Potter lets go of his hand. It’s so unexpected that Draco catches himself by the last second and avoids letting his hand knock out his glass.  
Is Potter messing with him? The question must be showing just fine on his face because the wizard says,

“I recited the pledge very lowly since what it mainly needs is magic. You looked deep in thought and I didn’t want to bother.” These last words sound vaguely mocking. Is Potter telling him that he should have just paid attention? He wasn’t even looking at Potter’s face so he doesn’t know if his lips were moving and who in Merlin’s name would want to look at Potter’s lips anyway? Surely not him. …Argh, fuck it. With his wand, Draco looks for the traces of the bind on his skin, and contrarily to his suspicion, there _is_ a trail of runes which is being absorbed into his body just then. He recognizes the runes for ‘mouth’, ‘words’, ‘identity’ and ‘home’ before they disappear within his magical core. Now, if Draco wanted to know the exact words, he would have to perform a runic circle on himself to make the whole pledge show itselves, but there’s no point, really. He’s more astounded by the fact that Potter bound him in a silence pledge wandlessly. How on Earth-

“Neat. How deep does your knowledge of ancient runes go again?” asks Potter interrupting his musings.

“Deep.” He grumbles as he stands upright, suddenly feeling out of sorts.

“I need my clothes.” He states, half because he suddenly recalled it and half to cut the topic off. “Not saying that yours are dirty or not enough, I just want my clothes.”

“Of course.” Replies Potter calmly, and Draco’s suddenly glad that he can at least reason with the man. However, Potter raises his forearm again, and this time he elaborates before the ‘what the fuck’ reaches Draco’s facial muscles.  
“You’ll side-along.”

Wait, what? “What?”

“Didn’t Mione tell you? Grimmauld Place’s wards won’t let you leave if you Disapparate, so you’ll side-along with me.”

“Potter-“

“I promised Mione I wouldn’t let you wander off alone for the day at least. Give yourself a break.” He already scheduled that, but having to be accompanied everywhere like a damn child? Absolutely no. Draco thinks, pondering on a solution. However, looking down at himself only reminds him how uncomfortable he is in another person’s clothes, let alone freaking Potter’s. That’s how, with a sigh, he clasps Potter’s forearm and in a swirl of magic they Disapparate so swiftly and inconspicuously that it must be the first time Draco doesn’t feel an ounce of discomfort. Soon as he shrinks his clothes and Potter shrinks his beloved pillow that Draco silently swears to Merlin he wasn’t looking at – not _that_ much – contrarily to his thoughts, Potter Apparates in front of a muggle supermarket and as calmly and silently as a wandering ghost, makes his way inside.

Draco follows him partly because it’s fucking freezing outside and partly because this is a part of the routine which he kinds of misses when he’s got work. Carefully selecting the seasonal fruits and vegetables, picking up milk and cheese, watching out for the discount meat because it’s expiring way too soon for comfort, and then wandering around, checking if anything appeals to his latest cravings. Indoor muggle places are also perfect to hide from the wizarding community and specifically from ex-Death Eaters haters, and Draco usually uses them to adjust his disguising charms before venturing out in the streets again. The force of habit unconsciously leads him to the breakfast food section, since the last thing he recalls having written on his groceries list was musli, when the reminder strikes him. He’s not here to do his own groceries and it’s not the afternoon of a quiet day at home, nor the evening after the end of a job. He’s here with Merlin-be-cursed Potter, who’s watching over Draco’s convalescence under Granger’s orders. There aren’t wards here to stop him. He could, no, he _should_ go back to his apartment and sleep the day off there, undisturbed, his pillow in Potter’s pocket be damned. Potter doesn’t want him at Grimmauld Place, he’s just doing what he’s been told to do out of that blasted Gryffindor sense of duty or whatever.Standing in front of the cereals section, Draco jerks his forearm minutely in order to draw his wand when a languid voice calling his name startles him. Turning around, of course, he finds Potter holding the groceries basket and a groceries list.

“Do you drink skimmed milk? Or do you not drink it all? There wasn’t any in your fridge.” After a passing moment when Draco is asking himself what on Earth was Potter doing by checking the contents of his fridge, he stammers out a reply. Then Potter asks him about pomegranate juice, flour type and pasta brands. As they approach the counters, Draco notices an old lady looking at them with a benevolent smile, yet when he meets her eyes, she blushes and suddenly finds the contents of her grocery basket very interesting. She couldn’t be…

“Malfoy.”  Huh? He is so busy dismissing the possibility that when he turns around he finds himself squished beside Potter in the space for the queue at the counter. They’re touching shoulder to hip and Potter’s so close he can count the shades of purple under the man’s impossibly, stupidly green eyes.

“Is this brand okay?” whispers Potter under his ear, and Draco is at the same time aware of the warmth of his breath and of their slight height difference when, looking down, he sees that Potter’s holding a bottle of lube. At the moment he can’t do anything but cover his face with his palm and strongly wish the blood out of his face, but, thinking about it, he can’t help but assume that Potter is messing with him. Which makes sense. Potter must be getting back at him, it must be revenge, Draco assumes, and his rising rage is about to make him hiss something, something mean, hateful, stupid, to counter-attack, to defend his dignity, when he notices that Potter is not even looking at him anymore; he’s silently reviewing the items in the basket a last time and then he proceeds on putting them on the belt in what resembles a kind of personal order. Draco unconsciously stares  as the Saviour of the English wizarding community opens his wallet and reviews its content until the cashier announces the price. Thus, as calmly as they entered, they quietly put everything away, lube included, in the bags.

This is the reason why Draco can’t get mad at Potter, he thinks as they walk out of the luminous building in the cold morning air. As long as Potter is not the same as he was until the last time Draco saw him: arrogant, quick-tempered, spoiled; as long as Potter keeps on behaving in this weird, ghost-like mildness, Draco simply doesn’t dare showing his fury out of sheer fear that he’ll be the one shouting nonsense, reminiscing a past that has been long since buried by the other man, and that Potter will be right in mocking him with his silence and his crystalline, void gaze, and eventually going on with his life, leaving Draco in the past, with the dead. Calm, detached, serene. No. He won’t allow it, thinks Draco as he rearranges everything in his room and totally ignores the blasted bottle of lube sitting on his bedside drawer. Since Potter, when they Apparated back, told him that now, thanks to the pledge, Grimmauld Place would be open to him, he sets off on an all-out exploration.

 

 

A couple hours later he slumps on the armchair in the drawing room, in front of the fire – which lit itself up as soon as he entered – and desperately tries to come up with something to do. At the cost of sounding absurd, he feels like he’s more productive when he is lazing around at home in-between jobs than he is now. Plus, his exploration tour was more of a devastation tour. He didn’t dare enter most of the rooms he opened because of stench of stale air, and the layers of dust and cobwebs on every surface. The furniture and the objects inside the rooms, as the antiques he has been examining, are all invariably preserved with very sturdy, old charms, but nothing stops the dust from depositing upon them, and so everything gives off  the vibe of abandonment.  Draco thought, no, he was sure, he could have bet his History Art books, that Potter would have closed off his bedroom and, in general, his private rooms to Draco. And yet, the second floor is as available to him as every other. Potter sleeps in a room which wasn’t originally a bedroom, that is for sure. Apart from being stupidly small, the bed is a total mess, as it is covered in garments, books and random objects, which is unusual compared to the relative tidiness of the adjoining rooms, an office with ceiling-tall libraries, a parlour room and what he personally dubbed as the ‘chair room’. Walls so strongly magically reinforced they ooze off magic in unpleasant waves, dark, heavy curtains, a room-wide carpet, an empty fireplace and a cushion chair, the same as those in the drawing room and in the library, at the centre. He picked up a book from the library but it was after seeing that creepy place so he even forgot what the hell he picked. What is it, again? Oh yes, Reever Wenham’s ‘ _Runic Magic and Wood Craftsmanship: Dispelled and Unbound volume’_. It caught his eyes because he only managed to get his hands on the first two volumes and he could only consult this one at Central Library. Must be the Saviour’s treatment.

After a couple of minutes of reading, though, he gets up and wanders across the room aimlessly. After a while, he recognize this kind of frustration. He’s in for a very urgent rendezvous in the queer district, as soon as possible. Frustrated even at the prospect of having to pull himself together to pull someone decent for a quickie, his aimless pace increases. He checks every room again, just because. All are empty. Damn it, didn’t Potter say that he had to keep an eye on him? Where is he when Draco wants some Merlin-be-damned entertainment? As the thought crosses his mind, though, he knows the answer already, and predictably, he finds Potter in the kitchen in the middle of the rhythmic sound of a knife cutting something very finely. The cutting sound and the old, comfortable sofa opposite the kitchen let him concentrate perfectly, if not for Reever Wenham, the old genius, who writes as weirdly as usual, thus he conjures some paper and a pen and sits by the table to better take notes, and when his fingers start to ache, after seemingly a couple minutes, he leans back to stretch his neck and finds out that he has written a dozen parchment pages of notes. Weird, he thinks, and upon looking at the clock hanging on the wall, he discovers that what he deemed a couple minutes has been a couple hours. Looking around him in a daze, he is throws out of his reverie when finds Potter staring at him, sitting on one of the chair of the table.

“Merlin’s beard!” he breathes out, jumping up.

“Did you always concentrate like that on your homework?” placidly asks the man as Draco scratches the shock off of his eyes. With a quick look at the clock, way past lunchtime, Draco gathers his things and wordlessly makes his way out of the kitchen. Now that he smells it, there are lots of absurdly inviting smells in the air, but since he missed lunch, he’ll have to make do until dinner, not that he’s not used to it.

“Where are you going?” Thinking that Potter must be suspecting Draco to be slipping outside, he answers with a dismissive “Nowhere.”, however, an unexpected reaction comes.

“Then you can leave the book here, come on, I’m hungry.” At which Draco turns around to see Harry’s magic swiftly setting the table for two. All the pots’ lids on the burners open and a new waves of tempting smells hit him. …Wait. For two?

“You… haven’t eaten already?” he asks hoping for a confirmation, but Potter, without even turning at him, shakes his head and states a simple “No.” Arranging the minutiae that his magic is, apparently, not seeing to, Potter keeps on looking down, and Draco wishes now, strongly, for the first time, that he was intimate enough with the man to grab his bony shoulder, give him a good shake, and scold him for not having interrupted him. Their situation being as it is, he can just set down the book and papers immediately, wash his hands in the sink and sitting down feeling like the most idiotic person in this whole blasted society. As expected, lunch is so heavenly he has to physically fight not to moan in appreciation, and next he has to fight with himself again to tell Potter that he should have just had lunch already.

“I can’t possibly eat alone when you’re right there.” states Potter placidly, without looking at him, as he arranges the charms to wash the dishes.

“Then  next time stop me so we can eat at a decent hour then.” He grumbles in reply without thinking as he moves to exit the room. Even though his own feet are carrying him, he cringes at the thought of a whole afternoon alone in this house.

“Malfoy.” Calls him Potter, and the turns around. “Do you want to play wizard chess?” and he tries to play it cool, he shrugs and mumbles something, not to show to the bony man standing in the pale light of the kitchen that he was about to accept pretty much anything anyway.

The parlour room apparently hosts very comfortable armchairs and a generally aesthetic arrangement of the furniture, followed by a post-lunch daze and the quiet time of the day, lead Draco to be irremediably stunned into silence when Potter asks him how he has slept. What is he supposed to say? Is Potter being sarcastic? What with his strange tone of voice, he can’t say for sure. Should he be honest or, as expected of him, scathing? Even if his silence is due to his pondering, Potter apparently interprets it for disdain because he apologizes.

“Wait, my bad, wrong topic.” Scratching the corner of his mouth, Potter watches his tower being smashed to pieces before going on.

“I saw a small album of the Black Family’s heirlooms downstairs. That yours?” Supposing that Potter is simply making small-talk, Draco confesses that he deduced the house belonged to the Black Family and consequently got the pamphlet from the library to better understand Grimmauld Place’s magic.

“How did you know about it anyway? I mean, are such albums common for old wizarding families or..?”

“It was at the end of the century, yeah, but I read about it in other books.”

“You read quite the volumes, by the way. I know they’re for work but you were reading that one, in the kitchen, so attentively, for a moment I thought ‘shit, I gotta move along on my Charms essay, too!’” Potter, in this remembrance of their school years’ looks lively, but his smile is still as fake as the ones worn by the elders at the parties his parents made him attend as a child. Draco remembers reading newspapers constantly reporting Potter’s presence to this and that high society soiree, Potter, the acclaimed war hero.

“Merlin spare me.” Breathes out Draco at the memory of his homework.

“So what is it you do specifically? Spell-breaking? Jinx-breaking?” asks Potter looking at him under black lashes while conjuring a glass of something. Is this some kind of questioning? Wonders Draco. Are they checking if he is keeping a clean tab? His suspicion must show on his face because Potter’s brows furrow then relax very quickly and he says innocently,

“I’m genuinely curious. It seems really interesting.” Not finding any source of contempt or provocation, Draco sets to explain, as generally as he can, his work. He is a jinx-breaker primarily, and he specializes in jinxes carried by objects.

“With anciety runes.” Draco nods.

“And you said you _feel_ the jinxes.”  He nods again, bitterly confirming that it was Potter, the master of Grimmauld Place, from the beginning; he didn’t dream it, it’s reality. And Draco even showed respect and spoke so formally. Damn crazy, manipulative bastard.

Suddenly, Draco finds himself itching to get away. If Potter’s going to ask him the mechanics or the origins of this characteristics of his, he’s going to walk away from this fucking chess game, loneliness and bore be damned. Instead, Potter keeps on surprising him and puzzling him.

“Do you find it useful?” Draco hopes to Salazar that the ‘what-the-fuck’ filling his mind is showing on his face, and yet Potter doesn’t seem to be taking any notice of it insofar he’s mumbling to himself, staring at the chessboard.

“Mh.. No, maybe I should have asked first whether you can remove it or not, but it sounds rude any way I try to think about it..” Even though he is not sure Potter is talking to him in the first place, Draco chooses to reply, partly because he wonders what in Salazar’s name will the black-haired wizard do with such data.

“Reliable sources assured me it can’t be removed by external magic. And yes, I find it extremely useful.”

“Mh.” Hums Potter snapping his gaze back at him, which is unsettling since his look gets the most spirited Draco has witnessed until now.

“External magic you said. What about internal one? Your magical core.” Inquires the man, keeping on with his disturbing staring.

“It can eventually be dissolved by inner magic-“ he replies, mostly to make Potter drop the Merlin-damned topic. “if the person doesn’t draw magic from their core for Merlin knows how many years.” Which, he hopes it’s useless to state, thanks, but _no_ _thanks_.  Much to his relief, Potter crosses his arms, regards him with a look which is an interesting mix of calculating and intrigued, and keeps that strange, heavy expression during the course of several chess games.  

Draco earns something out of this. He didn’t know (and doesn’t understand) how Potter can suck so much at wizarding chess.

 

Afterwards, he thinks that it must have been Potter’s strategy all the way, showing himself weak at chess so that Draco would let his defences fall, that’s how he finds himself totally unprepared at dinner.

“Do you still have to go to therapy?” Potter’s referring to the psychological aid given to all the individuals who became Death Eaters or came into contact with the Dark Lord before becoming of age. Draco picks out the best answer during spoonful of the most heavenly lentils soup. How can a lentil soup be so freaking delicious anyway? Didn’t he used to hate them when he was at the Manor?

“Merlin no. I went to a few appointments at the beginning of the programme, then rumours came that a therapist started emphasizing for his patient, feeling sorry for him, and they must have changed policy ‘cause I was made to write letters once a week, then once a month, whatever.”

“But you don’t go anymore.” He shakes his head as he bites into a soft potato. He could say anything about Potter, but not that the man doesn’t know his way in the kitchen.

“They track my wand anyway, so no point there.”

“But.. I mean, don’t you go for your addiction?” He raises his head then, half-thinking ‘let me enjoy this fucking good soup’ and half-hoping that Potter doesn’t mean what Draco thinks he mean.

“You know, the Wideye and the Strenghtening issue for example.” Says Potter twirling his spoon lightly and sounding expectant.

“For work.”

“Overwork, you mean.” Follows Potter right away. “You drank them because you didn’t want to sleep and I get that. And you look like you enjoy your work, at least from what I saw, but _that_ -“ continues the man pointing at Draco’s neck with his spoon, then sliding down to point at his forearm “coupled with _that_ looks more like self-harm. Don’t you need therapy for that?” And what is most irritating is that Potter says it in the most passive, indifferent tone, he even asks while scooping up some of his soup, as if they’re talking about the weather, or the groceries.

“Mind your own fucking business.”

Potter, instead of lashing out like he did in Hogwarts, instead of raising his hands in surrender and apologize for his enquiry like he seems to have been doing recently, merely shakes his head and murmurs

“I won’t.” then, as if he just said that he will actually keep butting in Draco’s business uninvited, he meets Draco’s gaze again, calmly, as if nothing happened.

“I need to change your bandages later.” And Draco’s traitorous body reacts by instinct, for he instinctively puts a hand on his forearm protectively. Merlin kills him if he’ll let Potter take a look again. However Potter doesn’t stop.

“You’ll feel better going to sleep with a clean bandage and a new charm. You were scratching it often, earlier” concludes Potter, and Draco’s dying to stomp out of this fucking house and waving this fucking nosy bastard goodbye, but he knows that his stomach and his taste-buds will never forgive him, so he resolves to eat everything in front of him while fuming and glaring in silence.

 

 

He’s going to get laid. He’s going to get laid. He’s going. To get. Laid. This mantra is repeated in Draco’s mind in the desperate attempt to tell his body to calm the fuck down, since it is absolutely unacceptable that he’s got a boner from just having the fucking Saviour’s hands around his wrist. Potter is undoing the bandages as slowly as possible, certainly in attempt to drive Draco mad and succeeding. The additional issue is the fact that Draco’s forearm is only now starting to ache. After having absorbed a Boggart he is usually out of it for hours and on top of it, he has to apply constant spells throughout the following day, otherwise the Mark will burn like Fiendfyre, then itch like a bitch. Truth to be told, he only remembered the Mark when he started to feel itchy during the chess games. To go on so many hours without feeling anything, it’s the first time in probably a decade. Although, even if the sensation is numbed, its aspect remains intact. If the Mark is a revolting sight in itself and his years on the job have spectacularly made it worse, in Draco’s opinion the Mark’s ugliness reaches its peak in the couple of days after he absorbs something as ‘big’ as a Boggart. The skin is raised in several swellings so big they make distinguishing the original drawing difficult, plus the complexion ranges from infection-purple to sickly-grey.  It is profoundly disgusting and the thought that Potter is watching such a spectacle so closely makes Draco’s dick starting to go soft from sheer self-loath and the wish to be swallowed by the carpeted floor.

As he jerks his forearm to shield it from his sight, from anyone’s sight, Potter catches it and raises  it with his hand to its previous height. He’s about to protest when the black-haired wizard, head still bowed, raises his other hand above the Mark and starts whispering something so low Draco can’t understand even if their hips and shoulders are brushing against one another. In a matter of seconds the itch begins to lose its intensity. A few things happen simultaneously then, an enveloping twirl of magic, so much pressured it resembles wind, breezes around them, Potter’s whole body seems to _radiate_ magic, and Draco realizes then that Potter’s magic may be stronger than he ever imagined, extremely so, and the longer he looks at, Potter still chanting the spell, his eyes closed in concentration, the sooner his boner wakes up again, much to his desperation. Out of the blue, he’s hit by the fierce and illogical hope that nobody is going to enter the parlour room and interrupt them. Them, embraced by the darkness, at the centre of a radiant whirlwind of magic which Potter is pouring into Draco’s disgusting, gruesome Mark so it won’t be uncomfortable for him. He doesn’t know why but he wants to protect this moment with every breath he’s got in him. Draco wants this to be theirs and theirs alone. He’ll treasure this memory and these sensations to his last breath.

When Potter moves and his magic lingers for a few moments before dissipating, Draco feels regret, longing, self-loathing and embarrassment all at once, but when Potter raises his gaze and scintillating green eyes lock with his, Draco is struck by a new truth. The slim yet well-toned wizard who is clad in velvet trousers, cachemire shirt and mohair wool waist-coast, with translucent complexion, a set of noble, eagle-like looks and silky, silvery hair; and the thin, wild-eyed young wizard with a mop of unruly, endearing black hair, perfect green eyes, simple thick cotton pants of indistinguishable colour and old wool pullover. If they were to be seen from an external, ignorant passer-by, they would be mistaken as the successful heir of a noble wizarding family and the fallen, crazed recluse living in a decaying house, impoverished and stumbling through life. And they would be wrong. They would be so wrong, for Draco right now feels like a first year in front of one of the Founders of Hogwarts, an apprentice in front of his master, a beggar in front of a watchful deity.

They stand like that for a few moments, when Potter’s wild look is averted and Draco can start to intake deeper breaths to calm down its ragged, rushed rhythm. Potter steps back only to take the bandages out of his pocket and covering Draco’s forearm again, which swellings and colours look considerably lessened, and before Draco can reconnect his brains, the black-haired wizard has already recomposed himself.

“Good night Malfoy.” says Potter quietly, looking at Draco in the eyes for a second before retreating.

“Good night Potter.” he replies to the man’s back.

‘ _Thank you.’_ Draco thinks, but doesn’t say, because he is a fool, a jerk, a child, a coward. He is Such a coward that he holds his forearm tight to his chest and, folding in himself, proceeds in feeling like utter shit.

 

 

 

 

# VII

 

“I’m going out tonight. Do the wards close in at night?” In reality Draco didn’t mean to ask at lunch, but Potter bothered him to no end when he was called for lunch and replied with an absent-minded “Mh.”, therefore he’s going to rub it in Potter’s face. Ha! He’s got a social life. Watch him going out and get some, loser. Thinking back about it, he should have foreseen that Potter, totally unfazed, would have simply nodded and explained him the spell to disarm the automatic rebound in the nightly wards.

 

His frustration for Potter’s indifferent aura is the reason why, several hours later, Draco pays even more attention than usual to his looks. Just watch him, he thinks, stepping into one of the denim trousers which best hug his ass. He’ll pull someone a thousand times hotter than that bastard, and his dick will finally stop to want someone as absurd as Merlin- _fucking_ -Potter. Next is one of his comfortable yet classy sweaters, his fluffiest scarf and of course, his best coat. A last glance in the mirror. Would he pull himself? Merlin, _yes_. And he’s good to go. As soon as he closes the door behind him, due to excitement Draco’s mood lifts so much, he descends the stairs with a skip in his step, plus, as he passes Potter’s landing he’s so happy he starts to hum. Of course he chokes on air when he sees the man himself in the entrance hallway, looking like sex on legs. With black boots and dark trousers with chains hanging from the belt loops, leather jacket, woollen cardigan and cotton shirt, Potter is a mix of a delinquent you wouldn’t want your kids to approach and a human-shaped pillow perfect for late-night snuggles. The top of the absurdity is given by Potter’s goddamn mop of hair which look untouched since that morning, that is to say, as chaotic as bed-hair if not proper bed-hair. How the fuck can Potter look hot with such stupid hair and stupid spectacles and stupid green eyes which are staring at Draco like he’s two seconds away for riling him up the wall and have his way with him for the night.

He’s gonna get laid tonight. He’s gonna get _soooo_ laid tonight. Draco repeats to himself a couple times before awkwardly stepping down the stairs. Merlin-damned inappropriate boners. He hopes to Salazar that Potter will have an ounce of pity and not comment.

“Have you ever flown on a motorbike?” and Draco can’t even thank Salazar in his mind because Potter manages to make it sound lewd, and Draco doesn’t even _want_ to know why Potter’s voice sounds lower than usual.  He shakes his head looking down, but as it is a bad idea because he’s starting to have thoughts about Potter’s legs, Draco resolves to face Potter’s blasted eyes. Or at least their general direction.

“Just heard of it.” Specifically, he’s read about flying bikes from queer wizarding magazines going back to his golden years of self-questioning, but that’s a technicality.

“Want a lift?” At the question, an involuntary hollow laughter erupts without Draco’s consent and he tries his best to play it into a cough.

“No thanks. I’m just going for a walk.” He lies stepping forward as to bypass the black-haired wizard.

“Malfoy.” Comes a voice and he feels a hand on his bicep, the lightest touch, and before he can see that it’s attached to Potter’s arm, the man has already lowered it.

“There’s a festival in Cardiff, it’s relatively warmer than London these days and it hasn’t rained yesterday so the sidewalks are not just a sheet of ice.” Draco opens his mouth to rebuke even if thoughts escape him in that moment, but Potter tilts his head sideways so green eyes pierce through his silver.

“Have you ever even been to Cardiff during a Christmas festival?” says Potter wearing the most passive expression so Draco can’t quite well guess if he’s serious or mocking. Plus, without even waiting for an answer, Potter opens the kitchen door while looking back at him as if to say ‘come on’. And to those eyes his mind says ‘wait a moment’, but his body says ‘fuck yeah right now immediately’.

At the back of the kitchen, Potter opens a secret door and with one last glance behind to see if Draco is coming along, they trail into a backyard. Honestly speaking, it’s not as messy as he imagined. Yes, there are tall, frozen weeds near the old, rusty fence interrupted by a slightly less rusty gate, but the rest of the grass is relatively well-kept  for the season, there is a square tiles path leading to a garden shed and as he waits for Potter outside of it, he notices a couple of spots shielded by thermal domes, most probably flowers. There’s a metallic ‘clang’, and when he turns around Potter is standing next to a black motorbike, fussing with the stand. Draco doesn’t why, maybe he couldn’t picture it earlier, but reality his him then. Potter. On a motorbike. And Draco sitting behind him. Maybe he should have put on trousers of a size up, these are to get a bit too tight for comfort. Instead of inserting the key, Potter whispers something, with his hand on the dashboard, while Draco desperately tries not to think how hot magical signatures are. They’re not. They’re totally lame. It’s an absolutely simple spell. No big deal.

Ensues a couple of awkward minutes after Potter motions for him to hop on when his body stops listening to him, the traitorous bastard. His hands prod and grope, his thighs tingle and his breathing system stops functioning altogether. Potter, for once, takes mercy on him and, wordlessly, grasps Draco’s hands as they linger tentatively on bony hips to pull them forward, so that gravity makes him fall nose-first in Potter’s hair and Draco’s whole chest bumps lightly into the man’s back.

Before he can slide backwards and try to act like this is a perfectly normal situation and he is not, in any way, affected, the bike roars to life, the gate in the fence opens and the vehicle tilts so much Draco’s heart threatens to jump out of this throat and abort this fuckery. It’s dark outside but Draco counts a few seconds of pure acceleration on the asphalt before Potter makes them rear up and take off. Then, Draco takes the next breath when they are horizontal again. It hasn’t been that long since he flew at night, but the view still makes his blood boil as if he’s savouring open air for the first time. Up here it’s one of the places he feels most at ease, naturally because of the distance and the freedom. Up here, the world is small, has always been, his family, society, expectations and pedigree. He certainly didn’t appreciate the aerial combat training as a young Death Eater, but maybe it’s because he’s basically hugging the man who obliterated that reality that those thoughts don’t cross his mind now.  On the contrary, Draco’s mind is so blank that when they land he has to fight the urge to ask if they are truly, already there and wonders if Potter’s magic got them there faster than normal somehow or if he really was completely absorbed in his own world.

Cardiff feels chillier at the beginning because they step off of the set of cushioning and warming charms placed around and on the bike but Draco has to admit that the atmosphere quickly makes up for it. Cardiff’s nightly festival is a mixture of a Christmas market, a culinary one, plus most of the open pubs and bars which happily cash in the people unaffected by the winter temperatures and the ice.

They enter by the muggle side of the market and instantly call for a warming up shot of mulled wine before the night can truly begin. There are many couples around due to the late hour, but just as many groups of mixed company. The Christmas market is cheap and colourful on both sides, the muggle and the wizarding one, and both sides of the local traditionally Welsh community offer a peculiar arrangement of cooking stands, not to mention the special offers some pubs have hanged outside.

Potter strolls calmly through the culinary muggle market, taking random bites off of free samples, offering Draco the rest, asking the clerks for recipes and tricky ingredients, getting them warm, alcoholic mixes of dubious colours, plus he skirts around the wizarding market with the stealth of a ghost. The first time they headed in such direction, Draco was about to, finally, excuse himself and proceed to the nearest queer pub, when Potter encircled his elbow without any real pressure and promised that they weren’t going to get caught.

“They can’t see us. I swear. I promise you Malfoy, you’re absolutely safe with me today.” He said. It must have been the couple shots of spirits he had already, otherwise Draco would have rebuked that he’s not a damsel in distress and for Merlin’s sake that was _fucking_ _cheesy_. Instead, he nodded, captured by those emerald eyes, speechless, defenceless.

“A Common Welsh mix.” He orders from a wizarding stand of spirits he has been eyeing for a while. Blasted Potter, why had he had to notice and then stare pointedly at Draco until he ordered first? He turns to the man in question to let his emotions be conveyed by his glaring ‘Happy now, Merlin-damned snob?’, but Potter is already looking at him with the faintest smile and quickly turns around to order.

“A Horntail, extra spicy.” Draco’s about to snort at the lame reference when Potter’s gaze turns back to him and the motherfucker’s lips curve in probably the most sensual smirk Draco has ever laid eyes on. Fuck him. Fuck him now. Like _right now, immediately on this blasted_ -

“How are we going to meet up?” asks Draco to cut off that train of thought as soon as possible. His pants are getting tighter by the second and the parameters by which he’s going to choose tonight’s partner are adding up to impossible heights. Wait, is that a freckle? Freckle on the left side of the neck. There, added. …. _Ugh_.

Potter doesn’t act like expected, that it to say, by being glad to finally get rid of Draco. He frowns and glares at nothing, as much as blank gazes can glare, and when they receive their drinks he glares at it.

“Potter?” calls Draco a propos of nothing, yet Potter, if he hears correctly, clicks in tongue in annoyance almost imperceptibly and passes him a galleon. Draco’s first instinct is to lash out, that he doesn’t need any fucking money from fucking Potter _thankyouveryfuckingmuch_ , when he notices that the layout of this galleon is completely different. The shape and metal is the same but there’s just a symbol engraved. It looks like a circle, a line and a triangle.

Huh? However, when he looks up, Potter’s gone.

Annoyed at the man’s appalling manners, Draco downs his drink in one go and wanders off. It’s become easy for him to spot queer places and he’s soon leaving the cold of the streets – why is it suddenly so _cold_ \-  for the cosy ruckus of a muggle pub. He’s making his way slowly to the counter, browsing the place in the meantime, when he sees Merlin-blasted Potter, talking and laughing with a group of young men probably their age.  Enraged, Draco makes a beeline for them. He wants to tell Potter that that was not how you treat the person you brought along and to get the fuck out of this pub since he sure as hell got more need to be here than him. However, the person whose shoulder he jerks is not Potter. Apart from the same messy black hair and similar leather jacket, he’s a completely different individual. His eyes are hazel, there’s a hint of puberty acme scars along his cheeks and he doesn’t wear spectacles, not to mention the shape of the nose and the chin are all wrong. Well, not wrong per se. Just… wrong.

“My bad, I thought you were my- someone else.” He quickly excuses himself and this time he walks to the counter keeping his eyes on the floor. Shit. What was he about to say? My friend? Saying you have a friend in places like that is not the best idea if one wants to pull quickly, Draco knows that, and still his tongue was about to betray him. Fuck. That’s why he orders something very mild next, to hopefully try to keep his wits to himself for the rest of the night and not spill out things he doesn’t want to spill. An elbow brushes against his fairly soon, but he already knew that. He’s irresistible, he never has to go out of his way to find willing participants. The thing is that life has its way to laugh at his face, so the young man is none other than the one he mistook for Potter earlier.

Merlin, even his voice is totally different, he thinks as he searches for a hoarse, deeper tone in it. Recalling the inappropriate and impending urges he’s recently been feeling, though, the guy will do. He will have to. Thus, Draco leans in to tell the man that, in truth, he had his eyes on him for a while and he was hoping for what he thinks the man is proposing. As predictable as dragon pox, the guy lights up and they soon make their way to the restroom.

Draco knows he’s splitting hair but first thing first, if the guy doesn’t remove his hand from Draco’s lower back he’s going to get a relatively bony elbow in the guts very soon. He doesn’t usually hate it, but there is something tonight slithering underneath his skin which makes his nerves prickle with irritation. The man’s voice, the way he juts out his hip, his fucking patronizing hand, Draco doesn’t know why but he’s five seconds from petrifying him and go get a better top. His thoughts are interrupted when the hand on his back leads his body to turn around slightly and a mouth suddenly closes in on him. It’s warm and wet and slightly better than average. As they kiss messily, he gets pushed slowly along until his back meets the wall and thank fuck at least the guy has realized this much.

Draco asks the man if he’s got a condom because he never risks altering the Ministry by using spells, but those smiling hazel eyes are weird to look at, somehow not right, and he focuses on the black hair instead. Potter must have put gel on his before going out, since they gave an illusion of style, but the wind soon turned it back into a dragon’s nest. Thinking about it leads him to think about the ride, about Potter’s warm back against his chest, about Potter’s sinful appearance tonight, about Potter’s promise of safety from the scathing wizarding community, about Potter’s outrageous smirk earlier, about how Potter would kiss him, lead him to somewhere private, how would he choose to make the first move? Would he latch onto Draco’s neck or behind his ear? Would he call his name, ask Draco to spread his legs a bit or nudging them apart silently?

Frustrated, he listens to his dick for once and pushes down his trousers and pants. Merlin’s balls he can’t even remember when it was the last time he jacked. Surely before the beginning of the Grimmauld Place job. There are cold hands on his ass and wet breath on his nape, and he can’t even recall when he was made to turn around but it’s alright, he thinks, gripping his hard-on. It’s dry and uncomfortable and a dry finger trails down the line of his ass to find his butthole and there’s a voice telling him that he’s a slut and _Merlinfuck_ he’s going to crucify this jerk later but now he just wants some fucking relief, is that _too much_ to ask? There’s a muffled groan somewhere behind him and a few moments of silence when he hopes to Merlin the guy’s opening the lube or something. His dick’s throbbing for it but his dry palm is not much help and his ass quivers in the cold. It’s too fucking much for his nerves and he falls forward in frustration, slamming his forehead on the wall and before he can think he’s snarling-

“If I wanted to jack off thinking about that scar-face _jerk_ I’d have stayed at home, so move the fucking _fuck_ _on_.” He’s suddenly aware of what he just said and he waits for the man to tell him to go fuck himself or something, since this is absolutely against all the one-night stands manuals he can think of. No strings attached all right, but you can’t blurt out that you’re thinking about another man right then and there! The knowledge that he’s going to be left there, against the wall, jacking in a cold restroom in Cardiff while the man in his thoughts is parading around having a good time and probably pulling some random guy for the night makes Draco want to vomit, makes him want to punch this fucking cold tiled wall and scream.

Out of the blue, the air around him becomes so warm so suddenly, Draco would have thought of a charm if the guy wasn’t a muggle, but before he can even feel thankful about it, an ajar mouth latches onto the base of his nape and, as a descending blanket, a body woollen-clad chest adheres to his back. A hand goes to tug slightly on Draco’s elbow and the other is wrapped around his dick and bless Merlin it’s _slick_. He takes a minute and a drawn-out sigh to appreciate the presence of something warm and slick and relatively tight around his dick, pinching slightly at the foreskin, and for a while, he just moans appreciatively because the English vocabulary is too far away from him now.

To indicate that he needs some attention to other parts, too, he grinds his ass on the man’s denim trousers until he finds something poking him lightly and then he knows exactly how and where to grind. The guy groans on his nape as appreciatively as Draco was just doing and his voice is hoarse and low and _Yes_ , Draco thinks, _Fuck yes_ , that’s exactly what he wanted, what he _wants_. He pushes on the wall with one hand to grind harder and with the other, he grasps the man’s hair. Messy and soft and prickling his palm softly as a trail of kisses is left on his shoulder. _Yes_. He thinks again. Or maybe said out loud, Draco doesn’t know and he doesn’t care because there’s a hand on his hip to still him and his dick is momentarily left alone when something thin, warm and wet circles his hole, then it’s a war against himself not to let out a chain of slurs and moans like the slut he was called.

The jerk may have said that but he opens up his butthole like Draco’s some kind of revered prize, precious and long-awaited, dragging it on and on until all Draco can think and say is a series of ‘Fuck’. Oh, he can’t wait to know what more of that skilled finger will do inside him. The man whispers something so low Draco can’t hear because he’s too busy being focused on the lube-slick finger squirming inside of him. The guy must have added lube because he feels, with a lazy shiver, trails of warm liquid down his thighs.

“Yes.” hisses Draco again, letting his forearms stick to the tiles. In the semi-darkness he can see beads of precum trailing from his dick but he doesn’t care, too busy shivering in anticipation for how his ass is going to be handled, and the man doesn’t let him down. As the free hand gropes his thigh, his ass-cheeks, his hip, his stomach, and light nibbles are delivered up and down his spine continuously, the man’s fingers explore Draco’s ass in all leisure, scissoring him repeatedly. He knows is prostrate is being brushed when his guts hurl in pleasure and his knees shake precariously, but the man, instead of finally freeing his own dick and start having his way with Draco, adds a third finger and keep on thrusting in lightly, without aiming for the prostate again, as if he knows exactly where it is now, but is purposely avoiding it. It’s not until Draco’s hunched, sweat-drenched body is being almost completely supported by the man’s arm and legs that he says it.

“Please.”

He never begs. He might be a bottom and Merlin knows he enjoys it when the partner knows what he’s doing but he can’t remember the last time a fingering has taken so long and he doesn’t remember the last time he had to grip his dick not to come before being penetrated, while shaking and trying to keep himself upright, and failing. But everything is perfect now, they started on the wrong foot, but the man didn’t let out another word and he did everything perfectly, so he thinks that, since it’s a night of firsts, he might as well say it.

“Please.”

Whispers Draco again, gulping down the sob which he won’t, he _won’t Merlin-fuck_ , let out. Instead of slamming in it like Draco expects, the man’s dry hand is splayed out on Draco’s chest, while the wet one wraps itself lightly over the hand Draco is desperately keeping at the base of his dick. The man’s body morphs itself onto his again, from nape to calves he’s covered by warm, dry clothes, and the hot, accelerated breath on his hair doesn’t scare him as it usually does every time he’s about to be taken. A hand leaves him, he hears a zip being opened, then a condom packet brushes his thigh and appears in front of his downward gaze. Draco nods lazily, he knows he’s drooling at this point so he’s grateful to the man to be done in this position because he’s honestly such a mess, he will drown in embarrassment until Salazar knows when. He doesn’t hear anything else but the next thing he knows, the lattice-covered head of a thick dick slips between his flushed buttocks and finally, _finally_ , he’s being filled and filled, gradually and steadily.

Fuck yes, he thinks again, relishing every inch he takes in. It’s thick and long enough and as far as Draco knows perfect because he’s been opened so much that there’s a second of discomfort at the beginning and then it’s just the sensation of being filled, of not being alone, of pleasure and cosiness and forgetfulness. Because the world outside doesn’t exist anymore, time and place are long gone, it’s all being reduced to the fast yet shallow thrusts inside of him and the sensation of falling and rising at the same time, coiled in his guts, ready to lash out.

With a frustrated cry, Draco fights the hands keeping his hips in place, only to jerk back when the man slips out to thrust deeper in, making stars sparkle and burst in the darkness of his eyelids and his every single muscle sings. After that, it’s like his body is possessed. Fuck the man and his lazy dick, supplies Draco’s mind while he jerks himself back and forth on the guy’s dick like it’s his last day on Earth and like this is Potter’s instead of a random dude’s, who, by the way, gets so overwhelmed at a certain point that his hands fly forward, to grasp at the wall, in a semi-futile attempt to steady himself. The sensation of being caged in by the man who has been driving him crazy for Merlin-knows-how-long spurs Draco on even more and he clenches, clenches and clenches, until he’s crying out with the force of his orgasm.

Somewhere fuzzy and hazy Draco hears a hoarse voice groaning and he thinks about delicious meals and simple, white tables, ornamental jinxed artefacts of the 19th century and a bare room, a whirlwind of sheer magic pressure and a hollow laughter, green eyes behind lame spectacles and thin, bony fingers holding his forearm as his disgusting, exposed Mark, and he hopes to Merlin, Salazar and all the Founders that he only thinks, and doesn’t let out his name.

“Harry-“

 

 

“Well, fuck.” thinks Draco when he opens his eyes to the dark, silent restroom he went in… Merlin-knows-when. It’s sure been a while since he blanked out after sex. That was one hell of an orgasm, too. He wonders for how long he came when suddenly he thinks _Fuck_! But looking down on himself he confirms that his wand is still there, and all his clothes are in their correct arrangement. He put a charm on his coat and scarf when he sat down at the counter, though, and, as he pushes himself up from his sitting position on the floor, he hopes that no greedy wizard sensed the spell and took them. Standing up, Draco is pleasantly surprised to find that his ass is sore but not hurting and that the man must have wiped him off because both his dick and his ass are safely tucked inside his pants and relatively dry. There’s still a drop or two trailing down his bum, but considering his previous experiences this is the top of the top in comparison to the treatment he’s used to from his one night stands.

Embarrassed to have come with his mind full of Potter and probably having being pitied so much that the other guy took such good care of him afterwards, Draco makes his way back into the pub’s main room. Thank Merlin, his coat and scarf are unharmed, and as he inconspicuously exits the place something small starts to burn in his back pocket. Startled, he takes it out and almost drops it in surprise because it stops being hot as soon as it’s in his hand, then he sees that it’s the strange galleon Potter gave him. Instead of that strange symbol there’s a single arrow now, pointing behind him, however he doesn’t make it in time and he feels a light pat on his shoulder and when he turns around he almost brushes against Potter’s nose, so close they are standing.

“There you are.” States Potter calmly, a different air surrounds him now. His hair, if possible, is even more tousled, a faint grin lights up his expression and the emerald in his eyes is burning with a fire of unknown origins.

“ _I did it with a stranger and came thinking about you_.” thinks Draco, but doesn’t say, so, to derange that train of thought, he clears his throat and looks down at the charmed galleon.

“Neat thing.” He comments, feeling his cheeks burning up.

“The galleon? It’s all Mione.”

“Mh. As expected.” He replies non-commitable, pocketing it.  Potter must take pity on him because they start walking.

“Yeah. She won a title… it was in the newspapers…”

“Theory of Magic Master: 2000 and Witch of the year: 2003.”

“Yes. Those. How do you know?”

“It was all the talk in the Ministry.” They leave the market square and streets walking side by side, their elbows barely brushing. It will make a nice memory, muses Draco.

“Mh. Did she get a lot of rumours?” Draco knows that tone and he doesn’t need to turn around to see Potter’s furrowed expression, he’s worried about ill-minded chatters around his friend.

“Oh yeah. Everyone used to sneer and say she was a know-it-all, but you can guess who they ran to when they needed a consult.” It elicits a good-natured laughter out of the black-haired wizard, so Draco counts a point in his favour.

“I’m glad. Did you see each other often at the Ministry?”

“Not particularly.” He shrugs. “I saw her around and she must have seen me around, too. If we happened to look at the same time, we’d nod or something.”

“Mh.” Hums Potter again. They approach the bike and Potter makes it come to life with his magic again. Knowing what will come and overall more relaxed, he gets on easily, Potter, however stays standing, steading the bike, beside Draco, and, looking up to meet his eyes, says

“I’m glad she didn’t give up on me and asked you to take the job.” And before Draco’s brains can process it, Potter mounts on, accelerates and Draco has to grab onto Potter in order not to fall off.

 

 

 

 

# VIII

Expectedly, since nothing goes as he wants in Draco’s life, things are both better and worse the day later. Of course, he feels more relaxed and less skittish, but now Potter’s close presence is more enhanced and makes Draco’s body want more, more, _more_. Not to mention that now that his memory is fresh with such an awesome sex session, he can picture Potter in his mind aided by a whole new quality. He’s going to have the time of his life tonight, he muses as he checks a set of drawers for jinxes. He and his right hand, that is. That’s the problem with awesome one night stands, they leave him wanting for more and Merlin knows he’s always been spoiled, so he wants it again and he wants it _now_. His sour mood is lifted when Potter comes to call him for lunch and he trails happily after the wizard. At the sight of the meal itself, Draco tries not to let out a delighted squeal and under Potter’s badly-disguised amusement, digs in with fervour.

“Before talking to you about Grimmauld Place, Mione told me that you hold the record for the slowest pace on the job.” Says Potter out of the blue, and since he still has a mouthful of delicious, hot pasta, he chooses to glare at the wizard, daring him to complain at the Ministry, the jerk. Instead, Potter smiles around his bite and goes on, unfazed.

“She also said your wand holds the highest record of runic spells of this century. Most of them can’t be transcribed to the personnel of the Law Enforcement Dep’s files because they’re too sophisticated.”

Well. Well now. That’s… That’s… Draco’s mind frantically searches for a sentence which will quickly let him out of this mess as he’s stared down by Potter’s visible amusement, when suddenly he recalls a poster he’s seen a week prior around London.

“A new bakery opened near Caledonian Park, there are special offers the first week. Thought we could have a walk and take a look?” Brilliant. To get him out of an embarrassing situation, his non-functioning brain-to-mouth filter put him in another. Where in Salazar’s name was the need to invite Potter along? Couldn’t he say ‘I’m going’ and be done with it?! Naturally, Potter looks surprised, yet nonetheless he murmurs a faint “Sure”, staring openly at Draco.

 

 

 

When it’s around time for tea break in Grimmauld Place, Draco is secretly terrified to walk down the stairs. Is Potter going to be dressed like the night before? Or will he look hotter? More importantly, will Draco survive this day without exploding from excessive sexual appetite? He sighs as he puts on a woollen scarf and one of his felt hats. Turning to the mirror he wonders, does he look like a piece of trash of the wizarding society? Fuck no. Does he look like he’s above them all and doesn’t give a single fuck about anyone out there? Fuck yes., and he’s good to go. He hops down the stairs, glad that he has begun to clean up the rooms on his landing and checking the artefacts in their intended environment, when he almost runs into an open door. He extends his hand just in time, only to find himself suddenly a little too close to Potter’ face for comfort. _Shit_. He still can’t orient himself well in this house, did he come from the third or the fourth floor?  Oblivious to Draco’s self-frustration, Potter precedes him down the stairs wordlessly. He’s wearing wrinkled denim trousers, a thick hooded sweatshirt, a scarf and he’s putting on a parka.  Draco knows he’s definitely going mad when he thinks that Potter still looks hot like this and he would still try to coax him on a night out. It must be the mind-blowing orgasm of the night before still speaking for him, surely. Draco’s going to be fine in a couple hours. Definitely.

 

 

The strange feeling he had the first time he walked into a muggle supermarket with Potter is gone and they stroll silently in the streets as muggle London bustles around them. The bakery slash patisserie, Draco isn’t sure, is a touch too beige and the glass-pane reflects their images and the light better than letting the customers see the pastries, but the service is excellent and after a couple of free samples, they get comfortable on a bench in the nearby patch of greenery - now more frozen ground and naked trees than actual green – to eat in all leisure together with the tea Potter brought with a strange muggle bottle. The more he tries to understands its mechanics – “Are you sure there’s not a warming charm?” – the more amused Potter looks – “Yes, I’m sure” – and it’s not a bad thing, seeing Potter so relaxed he flexes his arm so his forearm can lazily rest on the top of the bench.

“I’m glad you’re interested in the muggle community.” Murmurs Potter, and without looking at Draco, he extends his hand for the small tray of pastries, now empty, presumably to throw it away, and he does stand up and walk off. It’s not like Draco became _interested_ in muggles, he muses as he remains on the bench, looking at the passer-byes. The wizarding community threw him out, simple as that.

“Mr. Malfoy?” asks an unknown masculine voice at his right, and even after a decade of experience, he turns around instantly. It’s a man, maybe in his 40s, relatively well-dressed, with an inconspicuous bag. He could have easily been one of the muggle men that Draco sees at the supermarket of his neighbourhood, if not for the pin on his coat. Augurey’s feathers enhance communication spells, which are preferred by journalists, and in fact, the man’s face lights up maniacally as soon as they lock eyes, and the next thing Draco knows is that they’re shielded by muggles’ eyes and parchment and a Quick-Quotes Quill jump out of the man’s bag.

Ah shit. How to ruin a good day. As usual, the journalist bombards him with questions. Fortunately, Draco has quickly learned not to appear surprised at how in Merlin’s name do they know about his jobs already but seeing that he’s been employed by Granger, who works at the Ministry, whose husband is Weasley, he can see the connection. He can easily imagine Weasley going on and on about an ex-Death Eater being employed by his wife, and how she nearly fainted with worry once, just because the ex-Death Eater can’t take care of himself like the next guy and etcetera, etcetera. However, this isn’t the usual employer who chatted with the journalists to give his record of the dangerous experience to have an ex-Death Eater in their homes, this time is Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley, two of the trio of War heroes which greatly aided in, and in the case of 1/3 of them, personally killed the Dark Lord, therefore the questions revolve around Draco’s feeling about being employed by life-long enemies, if Draco’s knows anything about the Saviours’ whereabouts, health, living conditions, etc.

If Draco weren’t out with someone, in this case the aforementioned Saviour, he would have offered the journalist somewhere private where he could give them the scoop of the century whereas at the first narrow turn or, if anything else failed, in the nearest coffee shop, he would Disapparate, or use a Portkey to his flat, or sip a drop from his emergency bottle of Polyjuice, or all the emergency exits he created for himself to escape these sharks. Being as it is, he has to endure the blabbering man with his best blank face and the most neutral body language he can pull off.

“What would your parents have said if they knew you are working for Mr. and Mrs. Weasley now?” It was all the rage for journalists to ask him these questions, but it was so in the beginning, ten years ago, as Draco very quickly learned how to escape them. He forgot about it, but it’s his mistake, as is his mistake to clench his hands into fists and glare at the houses which can be seen all around the park, amidst dried branches.

“Would Mrs. Malfoy be amenable to an interview?” continues the journalist as Draco thinks about his mother, silent, unmoving, wearing pristine white and sitting on a tall, wooden armchair, overlooking the ocean. He knows that she’s well cared-for and in relative health. That’s all that matters, he repeats to himself, trying to ease the painful clench in his chest, trying not to heave his breath, trying to keep it in a corner of his mind, trying not to let it overcom him.

“What would she think about-“ but he’ll never know the rest because the world spins and in the blink of an eye everything is white. Draco staggers on his feet for a moment, but catches himself by letting his weight rest on his knees. There’s something around his elbow and when he looks, Potter is standing by his side, his breath is ragged as if he just ran a mile and his complexion looks paler than usual, ghastly, as if in shock. He’s looking down but Draco snatches a quick look and his forehead is furrowed as if in pain. Draco consequently decides to forgo asking what’s wrong to take in their surroundings. They’re in the woods, the white colour is given by several centimetres of snow, while the rest of the landscape consists of naked trees and lingering fog near the horizon.

“Where are we?” he finally asks, looking back at Potter, who, still breathing heavily, takes a desperate look around.

“We…” Potter heaves another breath as if it’s painful for him to do so.

“We are…” another pause, as Potter lets his fingers trail in his hair, a nervous tic Draco remembers from their years in Hogwarts.

“We are in the Forest of Dean.” And after a long, sighing exhale. “I’m sorry.” More than, why the hell are they in such a place, Draco is taken aback by the apology, because Potter looks even more distressed than he was before Disapparating.

“It’s all right. Weird place to concentrate on, though.” He comments, looking at the still life surrounding them.

“I didn’t concentrate, I just Disapparated and here we are.”

…..What?

“What?”

After another drawn out sigh, Potter explains “When I think of a place, I Apparate there. But when I Apparate without a destination, it’s pulled from my memories.”

That’s… not…

“That’s not possible.” Potter sighs again, sounding exasperated this time, and passing his fingers through his hair again. “You splinch yourself on the spot if you try to Apparate without distinctly thinking of a destination.” _‘Even veteran Apparators don’t try that shit’_ thinks Draco but doesn’t say.

“I can’t splinch myself.” He’s so lost in recalling newspapers articles to prove his points that he almost asks Potter to repeat it. And he doesn’t repeat ‘what’ himself because that would make him look dumb and no thank you, but, honestly… _what_?!

Potter gives him a sideways look before speaking again. “I can’t splinch myself.” He repeats. “I can Apparate however many times thinking about nowhere at all and I still don’t splinch myself.” Draco would think about arrogance, conceit and egoism, if Potter’s voice didn’t sound dead serious and if he wasn’t looking at Potter all along, whose hand is still circling his elbow and shaking, whose face is a mix of worry, desperation, exasperation and fatigue, whose lips are pulled into a thin line as if he wants to scream and never stop. He concentrates, because he doesn’t have the crazy ability Potter has, duh, and Disapparates, making Potter side-along for once. They appear a few meters away from his favourite spot but he can blame it on Potter for interfering with his concentration or whatever. The wind is cold but the landscape makes it up for it. The dried bushes, the sea, the smells and sounds, the Isle of Man on the horizon. It’s always such a good place to seek some peace when the pens of the journalist get too loud.

“Where are we?” asks Potter, staring at the sea.

“End of the Lake District. That’s the Isle of Man.” He replies, strangely proud of himself when he notices with how much raptness Potter’s gaze follows the waves. A jerk to his elbow almost makes him fall, so he follows Potter, whose gaze is still on the sea, down to the beige, black and grey pebbles. When he realizes that Potter’s gone for the world, he applies warming charms on both of them and settles down. With his elbow still in Potter’s clutch, Draco watches the black-haired wizard sitting next to him, hypnotized by the sea, until the cloudy sky turns dark and the sea turns a menacing black.

“Come on.” He says, trying to stand up, but for someone so bony Potter doesn’t let him stand upright. “Come on.” He insists, but nothing, so he decides to crouch in front of Potter, smack his cheeks and, once Potter’s gaze has finally refocused on him, he states-

“Potter, let’s get the fuck back.”  Thank Merlin, Potter’s eyes widen, and he shots upright stumbling and muttering “Yes, yes, sorry, sorry.” And the next thing Draco knows, they’re standing in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place and the fireplace instantly comes back to life to greet them.

“Here. Just a second.” Says Potter hastily and Draco watches, astounded, as Potter pulls a chair from under the white table, and, with an increasing ragged breath, starts to open a variety of drawers and closets, pulling out one item after the other.  Unable to understand Potter’s weird behaviour, Draco conjures one of his books and wordlessly and as discreetly as possible, he obediently sits on the chair Potter indicated. Along with his reading, he spies Potter’s movements. The last time he studied in the kitchen he didn’t fully notice, but Potter cooks in the muggle way from beginning to end, no charms involved. He cuts and stirs and mixes everything with his hands and tools. Even if Potter’s facing the burners, so Draco can only see his back, he knows from the frantic jerks of Potter’s arms that the man is in a daze. It’s like when Draco goes out to pull not because he wants some but because he’s read some shit about him and his mother in the newspapers and he wants something which will make silence in his head. Potter has been like that since they Apparated in that forest. Darkness in winter falls very early, yet Potter is starting to cook already, which is fine with Draco if he could go and continue with his job upstairs, but every time he pushes himself up from the chair, Potter turns around and, without a word, puts a tiny dish on the table with something incredibly yummy on it. Little things, pieces of vegetables, pieces of fish, a cup of tea, when Potter turns around with a spoonful of sauce, Draco knows without any more doubt, that it’s a plead to stay. He doesn’t comment on the dishes verbally, as he doesn’t usually when they eat, but he can’t help the little nods which come naturally while savouring such delicious treats.

Afternoon devolves into evening and dinner. Since Potter can measure out the portions accurately, at the end of the meal Draco is not bursting out of his trousers buttons, but he could easily get there. In the meantime, he lets the waist-coat precede him in his room and he conjures one of his woollen cardigans instead, patting his belly softly even if it’s appalling manners.

“Do you want the dessert?” asks Potter at the same time Draco burps in his fist as quietly as he can. Merlin fuck that was good. He opens his eyes to find himself at the end of Potter’s not-so-subtle grin as the man holds an oven tray with kitchen gloves. It’s more of a strange curve of his lips than a self-satisfied smile, but Draco is none the less frustrated when he thinks that, in this context, Potter doesn’t need any arrogance, his cooking is just that excellent.

“What is it?” he asks throwing an arm over his eyes, full knowing that this is the vocabulary definition of self-torture.

“Pineapple shortcakes.” and Potter’s voice is badly hiding hint of amusement. Draco can only answer with a drawn-out groan of frustration because Merlin-be- _damned_ , does he even like pineapples? They’re too sweet, right? But he didn’t like lentils and leek and Potter’s soup has got plenty in it.

“Come on, it’s fine, you can have them tomorrow with breakfast.” And yes, sounds good, and he removes his arm to convey a lazy ‘why not’ with his look, for which he’s rewarded with an equally lazy snort.

“Chess?” asks Potter and this time Draco can’t decipher the tone in his voice, yet it’s there.

“Are you not tired of losing?” he asks before thinking, and that’s how they find themselves in the parlour room playing muggle card games. At least the win-lose rate is more even now.

“You haven’t asked why I’m still here even if I’m officially abroad.” murmurs Potter out of the blue and by locking eyes with him, Draco confirms the seriousness of the inquiry and turns back to his cards, shrugging. He imagines it to be kind of the same reason he is still here. He likes London and he likes the wizarding community, after all, despite of all, unreasonable as it is. For Potter he’s thought it must the famous bond among Gryffindors. At Hogwarts Draco often saw Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors receiving letters from alumni, giving advices to the Prefects or the Heads of House, or just keeping in touch with their younger fellow housemates. One barely sees that in Ravenclaw due to the high competitiveness among its students, which pervades every career path. Slytherins usually keep in touch mostly via purebloods soirees and later through private, exclusive clubs. Indeed, Potter must have stayed for his friends.

“I’m sorry about today.” The reflection of the flames envelops Potter in an even more melancholic air than his voice convenes.

“Don’t know why.” He dismisses, shrugging, yet Potter shakes his head.

“I’m just not good with journalists.”

“Yeah and I’m clearly great around them, I was having the time of my life.” And he snorts drawing another card.

“No, I…” begins Potter scratching his eyebrows and fighting back a smile. “It wasn’t my business, I shouldn’t have pulled you like that. I just… some bad experiences and… I just didn’t…” Draco decides right then and there that Merlin _fuck_ , an apologizing-Potter is too awkward for comfort, so he takes a sip of the Butterbeer they’re sharing and slams the glass a tad too hard on the low table.

“Potter. You’re being creepy as fuck so in Merlin’s name stop right there.” And thank goodness, Potter smiles and bows his head in defeat, probably to smile some more.

“Sorry. That was weird huh?”

“It was.” He confirms with a curt nod, the beer and dinner starting to make him feel drowsy so he supposes it’s time for bed.

“Now tell me what the hell is this combination again.” Because he forgot. What game were they playing now anyway? Argh, Merlin strike him. After a few seconds of silence he looks up from the cards to find Potter smiling at him, clearly trying to bite back his laughter.

“You win.” Potter says and he feels oddly satisfied.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

# IX

The morning after, London is covered by a thick layer of whiteness. Draco spends the morning cleaning and examining antiques and after a wonderful lunch and a quick nap, he’s back in one of the rooms of his landing, preparing a barrier under the bed, where many creatures make their nests and common jinxes are placed to protect the most peculiar secrets. The pendulum clock, which, according to Potter, is like the grandfather of the artefacts of Grimmauld Place and has been living in the attic since Merlin-knows-when, strikes four and a half. Not to be English at all costs, but at this hour they’re usually having tea.

That’s why he makes his way downstairs leisurely until he hears angry voices coming out of the kitchen. It’s not a gradual thing. It’s not like he heard them faintly first, then they got louder as he approached, he was in front of the ajar door of the kitchen and as he extended his hand to open it wider, he hears them.

“-and that’s not counting the list of complaints!” the first is Weasley’s voice, punctuated by a slam.

“I don’t care about the bigoted opinions of people who can’t see past their noses! Those are same people who believed that I got Ginny pregnant without marrying her for _fuck’s sake_!” Draco almost doesn’t recognize it but that’s Potter’s voice. It’s the first time he hears Potter’s angry tone after their reunion. It sounds foreign and has a tinge of desperation in it and he decides he doesn’t like it one bit.

“That’s different!”

“How is that any different? I’m not putting any goddamn surveillance spells and that’s it!” Surveillance? Surely it must be for him.

“And I repeat that you’d be hindering an on-going investigation! If he has connections with the neo-Death Eaters, will you take responsibility?!”

The neo-Death Eaters? Shit, not those punks again.  Draco loathes to read the newspapers but he has to at least be regularly informed about the wizarding world. And there is, apparently, a group of young fellows who is crazy enough to admire the Death Eaters of the war and to follow in their steps with the totally original name ‘neo-Death Eaters’. He’s read in several newspapers that they are mostly sons and daughters of former Death Eaters but it’s a whole new music once one walks into any Department of the Ministry and Draco’s heard that it’s a lie, a means to excuse them, to reassure the public that they’ve got everything under control and everyone under strict surveillance since the war, where in reality all suspects and the few who have been apprehended have no blood connection to the Dark Lord’s Death Eaters and are basically a group of young anarchists who, in their rebellion against the Ministry of Magic, adopted such name to throw the Aurors off.

“There’s no responsibility to take because he doesn’t have anything to do with them!” screams Potter with another slam and the knowledge that Potter is on his side on this stirs something painful in his chest.

“And before you ask how I know that, it’s because I’ve been living with him for a week and there’s no sign of that. He’s cleaning up the upper floors, he hasn’t brought up the Blacks once, he hasn’t even asked me why I cook in the muggle way! And he sits down with me for every meal and eats what I prepare, unlike _someone,_ Ron!” he almost barges in there to cut off the growing edge of the desperation etched deep in Potter’s voice.

“What? We eat what you cook, too! And you know that if it were for Rosie-“

“I know, god spare her from her crazy uncle, right?”

“That’s not true and you know that!” There’s a short pause during which he imagines Weasley must be exhaling or sighing in exasperation, then-

“Anyway, we’re not talking about you, we’re talking about the ferret, and people like that _don’t_ _change,_ Harry!”

“You’re doing it again, you’re not listening. You’ve described a person and I’ve described a person and you just can’t see that they are either two entirely different people or it’s the same person but who _has_ _changed_.” States Potter.

“And how much that description is reality and how much is your bias? You’ve been obsessed with him since the moment you saw him and let’s not even talk about what kind of obsession is that!” At this point, Draco’s heartbeat is already in his throat but he physically jumps out of his skin when the loudest slamming sound he’s heard so far resounds in the house. After a short pause when he thinks that they’re going to find him out from his equally loud heartbeat, he hears a whisper behind him and turns around so fast he gets whiplash. Thank Merlin it’s not Granger, but one of the portraits. In fact, every portrait he can see in the hallway has either passed in the frames nearest the kitchen door or is listening in at the edge of the frame, a few are whispering among themselves, commenting. Collective eavesdropping. It makes him feel instantly better.

From inside the kitchen comes a whispering voice and although Draco feels relieved that it’s over, he doesn’t want it to begin again; for some reason he wants to be alone with Potter. Should he come down the stairs and stomp his feet? One of the crowded frames comes to his aid and a group of gentlemen and gentlewomen of almost every social class spanning three centuries nod their heads towards the door. Of course, cigarette break. Nodding his thanks, Draco swiftly crosses the space to the door, exits Grimmauld Place, burns one of his cigarette with a small, quick Incendio to let the smoke stick to his clothes and goes back inside, slamming the door behind his back.

“Blasted wind.” He murmurs as added effect, staring at the empty hallway. He doesn’t have to wait long and in a few seconds the kitchen door, no more ajar, opens abruptly and a disgruntled Weasley walks out. A few paces ahead, Draco deems it safer to let his body adhere to the wall and give up this one. When Weasley, visibly fuming, is stomping out glaring at the floor, Draco notices that all the frames are unpopulated. Clever ones. He looks after the red-haired wizard as Weasley slams the door behind himself in his rage, and finally lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Turning back to the inner house, he finds Potter by the kitchen door, with his hand on the handle. As they lock gazes, Potter’s lips curve slightly into a tired smile and suddenly, Draco’s throat is too tight and his hands are shaking with a need he can’t comprehend. He doesn’t know what to say now, is the thing. Even the simplest “hey” could carry a totally different atmosphere now, cosy, intimate. Thank Salazar, Potter saves him with a simple “Tea?” and a curt nod towards the kitchen, to which he’s more than happy to oblige. The thing is, it’s more difficult to ignore the signs that the spat left in Potter. There’s a fatigued air all around him, his eyes are casted downwards and he sips absent-mindedly, instead of asking Draco about how the work is proceeding, as he usually does. It’s unnerving and distressful, and Draco wants to do something but can’t think of anything appropriate. Once again, Potter unknowingly comes to his aid.

“Are you free tonight?”

“Let me check my agenda.” He says before slurping some tea. “Nope, nothing, I’m free.” Potter fights not to laugh in his cup, so he awards himself some points.

“’Cause I wanted to be Luna’s wingman for the night.”

“Lovegood? Oh Merlin, is this about the Beater of the Wimbourne Wasps?” He relishes the next few seconds during which Potter’s stunned face could make statues laugh to tears.

“Wh- No, that was _months_ ago. Have you kept in touch with her?” asks Potter and if he thinks he left out a scared tone in that one, he should think again. Draco shrugs at the question and recalls a series of unfortunate meetings.

“Sometimes. Whenever we cross paths she always talks to me, though. Invite me out to lunch or dinner or something and talk, talk, _talk_. She’s okay if you ignore a thing or two.”

“Heh.” Scoffs Potter fighting a smile. “Or two. Anyway, no, it’s not the Beater of the Wasps, this one is a wizarding geologist, it’s their first dinner out together and I was thinking about keeping an eye on her.”

“So it’s stalking.”

“I prefer the term ‘secret wingman’.”

“I’m sure you do.” He replies with a snort before eating a slice of tangerine.

“So?” Draco looks up to Potter’s hopeful expression and replies with an interrogative frowning.

“Will you come with me? It’s in wizarding London…” and by Potter’s tone he can’t well recognize if Potter is scared to venture into the wizarding side or scared that Draco will refuse him his company.

“Don’t know, we won’t get to sit down and eat if we have to stay invisible.” To which Potter looks pleasantly surprised.

“Sorry, I said dinner but it’s in a gallery. It’s like a gala but without the dancing part. There’s be a buffet.” Draco’s memories wander for a moment to the appalling quality of gala foods and plans a nightly expedition to their fridge afterwards to wash away the taste. Then, he reflects about all the newspapers articles he’s read narrating Potter’s latest visit to whatever gala; articles upon articles, one gala after the other, yet Potter talks about them as if he doesn’t know and/or doesn’t care. He recalls that he went to uncountable galas during his childhood, but they still don’t seem enough in comparison to those Potter must have attended as a war hero. Now he probably understands the scared tone in the wizard’s voice.

“Sure, why not, I’ll be Lovegood’s stalker tonight.”

 

 

This is ridiculous, he judges as he stares at the outstretched pile of clothes on his bed. It’s utterly ridiculous, it’s not like he’s going on a date with  _Potter_ , for Merlin’s sake!  Ten minutes before the gala is scheduled to begin, Draco is in his room, surrounded by most of his wardrobe, with an impending dilemma on his hands. Will wearing formal clothes be a message to Potter ( _daaaate_ ) or respectful to the people attending the gala? Because if they remain invisible the whole time, he will look ridiculous beside Potter, who’s bound to wear the same clothes he wears at home. On the other hand, if he dresses informally, and they are found out after all, he will look ridiculous in front of the top of the wizarding society. The pendulum clock is ticking by, on his throne in the attic, and Draco’s nerves are starting to make themselves known. Proof of this can be seen when Potter appears, calling his name at the door, and Draco doesn’t even realize that his trousers’ are open on the front and he’s only wearing a loose t-shirt, so when Potter’s eyes widen for a fraction of second, he assumes incorrectly and mentally berates himself for letting Potter see his room in such a mess.

“Potter.” he calls, and even if  the man in question replies with a strangled interrogative sound, he’s got other things to worry about now. Once he explains his situation, though, there’s a hand on his back, a light touch, almost imperceptible but undeniably there. To his right, Potter’s serious expression makes his mind go blank.

“We won’t get found out. We won’t be seen. I swear. I’m staying with you this time, I- The last time I was-“ when Potter starts to look a bit grey, Draco decides it’s time to interrupt.

“Potter. What in Merlin’s name are you wearing?” it’s not like Potter’s wearing anything utterly appalling but it’s the first thing which comes to his mind. By the way, he’s wearing tight but thick-looking denim trousers and one of his apparently many and much colourful woollen sweaters on top of what appears to be a cotton tunic. Instead of his usual, dark-framed spectacles, this pair is stark white, maybe a spare. He mentally checks if he would pull Potter tonight and mentally confirms it, he takes off his trousers to find a pair which colour would match Potter’s.

“You- You have quite the wardrobe.” Comments Potter non-commitably.

“Mh? Yeah, it’s something I didn’t want to renounce to.” Part of him wears formal clothes because they easily call for a favourable impression from his employers, partly because he’s always wore them, he’s used to it, and partly because he’s come to like them. After finding a suitable shirt and a camel wool pullover they make their way downstairs. Outside, Potter Apparates them in a dark room. It’s too dark outside the tall window, but by the smell of cleaning products and the design of the frame of the windowpane, Draco assumes that they are in a private room in the building of the gallery, and once they slip in the corridor, he gets his confirmation. He realizes the folly he’s carelessly thrown himself into when they walk down a hallway to access the main rooms of the gallery from one of the personnel exits, when a couple of waiters come walking up to them chatting about how gorgeous is the Head of Magical Catastrophes Department’s wife. Draco’s nervousness must have shown from his step because Potter turns to check on him, but he can’t meet the green orbs for more than a second, he’s embarrassed.

Before Potter can give him a way out, he slips in the space of the closing door and into the gallery, Potter expertly trailing after him like it’s his second nature. The art present is mostly different but he recognizes the building from his hazy childhood memories. He starts to walk around and Potter, true to his word, stays close to his side or behind him, depending, since the people they cross really don’t seem to see the two of them. A gentle tug at his sleeve finally makes him look at his partner for the evening but Potter is looking elsewhere and, following his gaze, he spots Lovegood and the infamous date. Once he ascertains that Lovegood’s wardrobe is as eccentric as it’s always been, if not more refined by the passage of time and its consequent maturity, they slowly follow the pair around exchanging comments here and there, mostly about the geologist at Lovegood’s arm, and mostly snide in tone. During the customary speech given by the organizer of the soiree, they stand behind the crowd, by the farthest wall. They’ve only had a glass of champagne each because it’s unbecoming to eat before the speech part and it’s way past their usual dinnertime so Draco should have expected the grumbling. What he didn’t expect is for his stomach to turn into a Salazar-damned, starving _dragon_. After he endures Potter’s poor attempt at stifling his snickering in his stem glass, he feels a point of warm contact along his arm and when he turns around, Potter’s looking at him with a warm, self-satisfied smile. He’s starting to like that smile a bit more than he’s comfortable admitting.

“Hungry?”

“Absolutely no.” he insists, eliciting another snickering fit.

“We’ll head to the buffet as soon as possible, I’m sorry you’ll have to endure until then.” Continues the black-wizard with a hint of amusement.

“Whatever.” He dismisses, sighing. “After your cooking I’m ruined for everything else.” In the corner of his vision, Potter’s face snaps to him so fast Draco’s sure he just got a whiplash, but he’s too intent in trying not to meet that widened gaze frontally, so he sips his champagne as casually as he can master until Potter, with another jerking movement, looks downwards and keeps his head slightly bowed for the remainder of the speech. If he knew that complimenting Potter elicited such a reaction he would have used it at home, when the lights are bright enough that he can see and catalogue Potter’s expression in all leisure. Even if they approach the buffet as soon as there’s enough space for them to fit without bumping into a dozen high-society members, as Draco supposed, the food’s no comparison to Potter’s. From a corner of the table they watch Lovegood stroll around absent-mindedly with the ever-talking man at her side and Potter voices his thoughts that this one, too, is no good for her, although most of his mind is still on this Merlin-blast-it food. Salazar save him, he thinks as he washes the taste with lots of wine.

“So? What do you think?” asks Potter with a mischievous grin and with his head tilting to the side. He looks fucking kissable, Draco thinks. Are they still talking about the food? Because if so,-

“Your cooking is a thousand times better.” He slurs a bit and immediately regrets it. It’s a _million_ times better. Potter remains silent beside him but he doesn’t care, he’s too intent in stealing the bottle of wine before a Mrs. Something gets to it.

“How many glasses did you have, Malfoy?” asks Potter next to him and hell if he knows so he shrugs it off.

“You know, I used to love these soirees, especially as a child, everything was glittery and the guests were all lovely and kind and everyone wanted to introduce me their sons and daughters because I was the Malfoy heir.” He downs the wine and watches the rest twirling in the glass, a rich dark crimson colour, much too similar to blood.

“I used to think that you, like, _child-you_ would walk in there and ask me to be your friend.” it’s not a huge gap of the imagination to look at one of the gallery doors and be there again, in those scintillating salons, with ceiling-high windows and doors leading into the inner villa. Now he knows what Potter looks like and is like at eleven years old, but in his childish dreams Potter less scrawny and more smiling and only kind to Draco. Much like he is now, in fact, bar the scrawny.

“Fuck.” He realizes suddenly. Fuck nostalgia, fuck his childhood, and fuck Potter, but especially fuck _him_ and his _feelings_ for Potter. What did Weasley even mean with “obsession”? Fuck. He needs to get laid. _Now_. He _needs_ it. He wants it. _Rightnow_.

“Malfoy, wait!” an annoying pull on his forearm makes him turn around and glare at the hindrance, which in this case, is Potter, the blasted man himself, who’s looking, at him, afraid. Of what, Draco doesn’t want to know, if there is something which scares the Saviour he sure as Salazar’s name doesn’t want to go anywhere near it.

“What?” he asks, annoyed.

“Where are you going?”

“S’ up. For a walk.”

“Are you going for a walk or are you going to pull?” Fuck you. He thinks as he lazily tries to pull out of the hold. He’s too hot, there are too many clothes on him and he wants to jack himself raw but  it’s there, underneath the heat, the quiet yet urging want to spread his legs and have someone, someone good at this, someone like the guy he found in Cardiff, to take care of him. He wants to forget the world and scream in pleasure to his heart’s content.

“No.” someone says and he blinks and he’s in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, someone clicks their tongue in annoyance and he blinks and he’s in the dark. Then a source of light appears, he turns towards it and it’s one of the lamps of the bedrooms of Grimmauld Place and, indeed, there is a bed, a couple of closets and drawers. This is too cramped to be his room. Is this Potter’s? He can’t say. He doesn’t care. Turning around, he half-staggers, half-falls on the bed, kicks off his shoes and, scooting backwards, presses his palm on his dick, hard and hot underneath the fabric. He grits in teeth as every inch of skin is on fire with the urgency of his need and, in the back of his mind, he tries to count the days. It can’t be his Veela blood, it hasn’t been that long, so why does he need it so much now? Has he finally developed an addiction, is he addicted to sex, too, now? Something in his body is on fire until his name is called.

“-co. Draco!” but it’s not just his name, there’s a pair of hands in his hair, on his cheeks, on his jaw, green eyes, on his shoulder. Of course, it’s fucking Potter.

“Fuck you.” He breathes out, taking his belt off and struggling to open his trousers. “Honestly, _fuck you_ , there’s just no comparison.”

“Draco, I can’t understand if you’re drunk or you have a fever, you’re too hot.”

“Look who’s talking.” Because, honestly, has the guy looked in a mirror lately? A huff of laughter resounds somewhere above him and he’s tempted to pout when Potter asks-

“What doesn’t compare?” He almost can’t recall, everything is still quite hazy, when he remembers. “Your cooking.” The hands on his shoulders still all of a sudden.

“My…”

“Yeah, there’s not fucking comparison. I didn’t even like custard cake _for Merlin’s sake_. Just… just _fuck you_.” And it’s strange and at the same time nostalgic hearing Potter’s choked laughter at his slur.  There’s a warm breath on his neck which makes his skin shiver pleasurably and before he can process what’s happening Potter’s face is so close to his, he can’t even focus, even if he wants to, since Potter’s smiling, smiling down at him like they share a secret and Draco is enjoying every moment of this.

“You really do love my cooking.” Breathes out Potter, his face the epitome of awe, emerald eyes alight with glee.

“I fucking do.” He spats out angrily, and when Potter noses behind his ear his whole spine quiver, his back arches and he bows his head lower trying not to give in to his urges, trying to concentrate, to remain in control.

“You just have to say the word and I’ll cook everything you want for the rest of your life, Draco.” Whispers Potter right in his ear, the _jerk_ , and he feels his dick leaking under his palm, and what in Salazar’s House is this fuckery, commitment shouldn’t get him off, none of the shit his one-night stands whispered to him in the same manner has ever gotten to him like this.

“Shit.” He hisses, hurrying to free his dick. It wasn’t a proposal, it wasn’t anything. It just sounded like a proposal, Potter didn’t mean it, surely.  He closes his hand around his dick but he doesn’t even feel it. He needs something else but he doesn’t know what, Draco just knows that he, alone, will never suffice.

“Shit.” He hisses again as he slumps on the bed, clutches his dick to the point of pain, his legs clenching and quivering in reaction.

“Draco what- Oh my god.” Draco feels a body hunched over his and a chest brushing his side and his blood starts burning up again.

“Do something Potter, fucking _do something_!” he cries out.

“I.. what-“

“Fuck me for fuck’s sake!” he snarls as he tries to jack some frustration off, but his hand is dry and scratchy and does nothing to help.

“Draco, I meant to tell you, in Cardiff…. I- We-“

“Don’t make me beg, Potter! _Fuck you_!!!” Because, honestly, what nonsense is Potter babbling about when Draco could use some action right now?

Finally, Potter breathes out a string of “Okay, okay, okay.”, and the next thing Draco knows is that Potter’s breath is hitting the skin of his shoulder directly and there’s no fabric between his thighs either, but he doesn’t breathe until there’s a tentative hand on his ass and then, as natural as existing, he turns belly-down on the bed, waiting.

Thumb first, the hand explore the breach between his buttocks with leisure and when closed lips descend on his nape and trail down his spine slowly Draco releases his dick with a long sigh and grasps the duvet instead. Then there is a low whisper above him and his hole is throughtly swept by something ghostly thin, wet and slippery, and at the same time a tongue latches onto the sensitive skin behind his ear, causing the haze around his reason to thicken and his body to shake in anticipation.

Another whisper, another wet wave within him and a trail of open-mouthed kisses down his back cause him to arch naturally into the touch, until cool hands lift his hips a bit and next an incredibly hot point of wetness attacks is hole and it takes Draco all he’s got not to scream. The only thing he can process is ‘fuck yes’ as he tries to remember the last time he was eaten out, but it’s too far in time and even if it was more recent, it certainly wasn't this good. He feels like every nerve in his skin is quivering, as the shaking evolves into near convulsions, and the warm tongue pushes deeper and deeper inside him.

“Fuck.” He breathes out, spreading his legs on instinct. “Care to move on down there?”

And yet in all response he gets tongued deeper and he cries out again since it's too good but his dick is aching in front his stomach, deprived of even the pressure of the blanket but dripping steadily, when suddenly his buttocks get squeezed so tight that the sensation of diving head-first for the Snitch explodes in his gut and he’s coming untouched, pressing his forehead onto the duvet as hard as he can to keep a minimum sense of reality.

When he comes down the room’s lines are clearer, a big part of him can’t believe that Potter, fucking _Harry Potter_ , just ate him out, but an equally big part of him is still on fire and more importantly, wants revenge. In fact, when he looks behind, Potter’s still with a hand on his hip and the other around his own dick, the only part of his body out his clothes, and his forehead is mapped by wrinkles of concentration and frustration.

English has yet to be loaded in his mind so, with a huff of annoyance, he slaps Potter’s hand away and, trying not to make any eye-contact and ignoring the man’s hazily muttered “Draco”, he scoops backward. Nailing Potter’s dick while facing the opposite way is easier said than done but, keeping his hand on the dripping cockhead, he feels it when it brushes his buttock and then it’s quick work; he lifts himself up and lowers himself down giving Potter only the time to gasp in shock. He’s still loose, of course, so he slides all the way down while staring at the contrast between Potter’s legs, still clad, and his, naked, sweaty and shaking. Draco would be ashamed of his state if Potter’s dick wasn’t the sweetest burn kindle inside him, the best burn, a slightly stinging and lingering sensation, yet not fully painful.

Once it’s all in, it’s Draco's turn to drive Potter crazy and he starts bouncing immediately in shallow, quick motions, or at least, the quickest he can from his post-orgasm haze. He somewhat steadies himself by grabbing Potter’s thighs. Soon, though, the hand on his hip leaves him and he feels Potter’s woollen sweater on his back, prickling his sensitive skin and the new angle is so sudden and so deep that he has to still for a moment and regain his breath, because holy _shit_ , he’s coming again, hol _y shiT_. He opens his eyes to check and no, thank Merlin, his dick is nearly crimson and spluttering opaque, steady beads of precum but he’s coming yet. Something hot on his ear is distracting him and thinning his already slim concentration so he tries to bat it away but finds soft, messy locks of hair instead.

“Turn- Turn around.” stutters Potter against his neck, breathless.

“How.About.No.” replies Draco gritting his teeth and punctuating his words with forceful thrusts, trying to throw Potter off but what it does instead is making him land tiny nibbles on Draco's shoulder.

“Draco, please. Turn around, I want to see y-.”

“ _Fuck_ no.” he rebuts immediately. “Too embarrassing.” he dismisses quickly, trying to focus again and to clench around Potter’s dick even if it’s counter-productive since it’s resting right against his prostate now.

“Come on. _Fuck_. Come on.” He cries out with what little voice he has while Potter, the sappy jerk, repeats a mantra of “DracoDracoDraco” with his nose buried in his sweaty, moist hair, but it’s useless, an unfortunate thrust and he’s coming again, for real this time: heat explodes from his every pore and all his remaining strength is sapped out of his muscles.

Thanks to a timely forearm around his belly, he doesn’t slump and smack his head on Potter’s knee. Instead, from his half-hunched over, half-sitting position, Potter finally, finally, takes the lead and thrusts in a handful of times, and when he comes, he does with Draco’s name on his lips.

 

 

 

 

# X

He sits up in bed, the scream cut off in his throat, but in the darkness something slithers onto his stomach and he screams for real then, half-frustrated at the existence of Merlin-fucking  _snakes;_  however, something weird happens, the snake doesn’t tighten its hold, and something long and semi-hard adheres to his back, and something else gropes his arm until it finds his hand and Draco realizes it’s another hand, it’s a hand grasping his, there’s a body, an alive body behind him, so he returns the grasp, trying to breath rhythmically, trying not to suffocate, and then there’s something brushing in his hair, and it’s soothing so he leans towards it.

He doesn’t know how long he stays in that position but at a certain point he starts hearing a hum. He’s drenched in sweat which is quickly turning cold and there’s someone warm, and _alive_ , holding him and petting him and humming in his ear. It’s not the Manor. It’s all right. He’s not there.

Thankful and reassured, Draco allows himself to relax minutely as he turns into the body for more comfort, grasping at softfabric and clutching it with both hands, to make sure the other person doesn’t go anywhere. In reaction, a hand starts petting the wet hair of his nape, and another sweeps his back in broad curves and there’s a nose and a mouth, too, in his hair. It’s safe and warm and comfortable, and Draco presses his whole face into the person’s chest, wanting to be closer, entwining their legs, closer still, and only with his last thread of consciousness, as the duvet is being pulled over their entangled bodies, he realizes that now Potter knows that he still has nightmares.

 

 

When he wakes up his throat is too dry, his head aches a bit and he has to go to the loo urgently. With his eyes half-closed he gets out of the room headed to the restroom even though, apparently, the door has moved overnight. Whatever. It’s still dark in Grimmauld Place so he makes his way there and back and slips quietly under the duvet, where something very warm hugs almost his whole body. As he’s dozing off he feels a hand over his hip and onto the small of his back and scoots closer instinctively.

When he wakes up again it’s light outside, his head is killing him and his mouth feels like a cemetery. Blinking blearily, Draco finds out that the position of the furniture of his room is off, there are few items which weren’t there the day before, not to mention that the room itself has considerably shrunk overnight. The glass of water and the headache potion on the bedside drawer are not unwelcome, though.

Stepping out of the room, the faint smell of breakfast is filling the air and as he wonders how the scent could get up to his floor, the third one (probably?), Potter appears at the top of the stairs.

“Draco, hey.” Breathes out the man and his green eyes are shining with a vivid, lively light. His hair is a total mess, and he’s wearing some wintery plaid sweater. A person shouldn’t look so hot in such a state. It’s just unfair.

“Breakfast’s ready.” Follows Potter no louder than a whisper and in that moment Draco remembers everything. Well... " _everything_ ". A few moments here and there are a bit hazy, but he turns around, and yes, that’s Potter’s room, and the parlour room and the chair room beside that.

Well fuck.

“Please.” Potter hurries to say and he’s extending his hand towards Draco as if he is about to Disapparate somewhere. The idea is inviting, running away is always the easiest way out, but Disapparating to his room sounds too childish and meaningless and Disapparating to his apartment would be useless because it has been reduced to just a couple of rooms full of cheap, too new furniture at this point. And breakfast smells _great_ , as usual.

“We can talk downstairs. I’ve made cheese scones and marmalade cream puffs.” Hurries Potter to add, his eyes and his hand conveying fear.

Draco stands at the beginning, and it terrifies him and excites him at the same time. He could say no and walk out and maybe Potter would crumble under the rejection or he would hate him for yet another decade,  or Draco could say yes and start a new day.

He opts not to say anything. He steps forward and, ignoring Potter’s extended hand, bypasses the still-frozen man, his elbow brushing against Potter’s arm, and whispers-

“Come on. I’m starving.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a review and don't worry about being honest with me.


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